book reviews and features
Roddy Doyle: Smile review - return of the repressed
Sunday, 24 September 2017
Although he made his name with the generally upbeat grooves and licks of his Barrytown Trilogy, Roddy Doyle has often played Irish family and social life as a blues full of sorrow and regret. In... Read more... |
Claire Tomalin: A Life of My Own review - the biographer on herself
Sunday, 24 September 2017
The title says it all, or at least quite a lot. Luminously intelligent, an exceptionally hard worker, bilingual in French, a gifted... Read more... |
Anne Applebaum: Red Famine review - hope around a heart of darkness
Sunday, 17 September 2017
Hands both sensitive and surgical are needed to guide a reader into the heart of the 20th century’s second biggest genocide and out again. Anne Applebaum is the right person for a... Read more... |
Adam Macqueen: The Lies of the Land review - light, but enlightening
Sunday, 17 September 2017
We are now firmly in the post-truth era as defined by Oxford Dictionaries: "adjective - relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping... Read more... |
Robert Harris: Munich review - reselling Hitler
Saturday, 16 September 2017
Robert Harris’s first book about Hitler told the story of the hoax diaries which seduced Rupert Murdoch and Hugh Trevor-Roper. After Selling Hitler (1986) came Fatherland (1992... Read more... |
John le Carré: A Legacy of Spies review - the master in twilight mood
Sunday, 10 September 2017
Over his long career – 23 novels, memoirs, his painfully believable narratives adapted into extraordinary films (10 for the big screen) and for television – John le Carré has created a world that... Read more... |
Extract: Peter Brook - Tip of the Tongue: Reflections on Language and Meaning
Sunday, 10 September 2017
A long time ago when I was very young, a voice hidden deep within me whispered, "Don’t take anything for granted. Go and see for yourself." This little nagging murmur has led me to so... Read more... |
Sigrid Rausing: Mayhem review - you want it darker?
Sunday, 03 September 2017
There is fictional Nordic noir. And then there is this, the real thing. Subject matter really couldn’t be much darker than that of Mayhem: A Memoir in which publisher,... Read more... |
Val McDermid: Insidious Intent review - dark and expert crime writing
Sunday, 27 August 2017
Val McDermid has written close on 30 award-winning thrillers and suspense novels, in four series, since... Read more... |
Omar Robert Hamilton: The City Always Wins review - Egypt's revolution, up close and personal
Sunday, 20 August 2017
A few days ago we learned that British taxpayers have unwittingly donated around £1m. in aid to the police and court systems of Egypt’s military dictatorship, via an opaque “Conflict, Stability... Read more... |
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