The Drowned City by K.J. Maitland
Review by Julie Barham A world turned upside down is the subject of this vivid historical novel set in an English city: politically a new royal house is in power,…
Raising Laughter: How the Sitcom Kept Britain Smiling in the ‘70s by Robert Sellers
Review by Annabel I watched an awful lot of telly in the 1970s, my formative teenage years. It was thus inevitable that between the early evening slots occupied by Top…
Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia by Jeevan Vasagar
Review by Liz Dexter Open to global flows of capital but largely closed to political change, Singapore is a reform-minded dictator’s dream, suggesting that a country can enjoy the prosperity…
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
Review by Annabel Amor Towles’s first novel, Rules of Civility, was published in 2011 when he was in his mid-forties. It was such a success he was able to retire…
Trust, by Domenico Starnone
Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davis My initial recommendation for any readers of this novel would be to turn to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Afterword first. The translator is herself…
Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year Through Japan’s 72 Seasons by Lev Parikian
Review by Liz Dexter “For Japan’s lotus blossom, praying mantis and bear, we have bramble, wood louse and urban fox” Lev Parikian, a writer, birdwatcher and conductor, had already started…
April in Spain by John Banville
Reviewed by Harriet Almost exactly a year ago, I reviewed John Banville’s Snow [here], an immensely enjoyable country house murder mystery. I particularly liked D.I. St John Strafford, the detective…
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Reviewed by Harriet ‘Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked’. So we are introduced to the leading character in Colson Whitehead’s new novel. His two most…
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka
Review by Anna Hollingworth “Literary lion” is one descriptor attached to Wole Soyinka. For one, there’s a mane-like quality to his hair, a kind of halo circling his face. More…
Golem Girl: A Memoir by Riva Lehrer
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster In February, the inaugural Barbellion Prize was awarded to Golem Girl, visual artist Riva Lehrer’s account of growing up with spina bifida, entering Disabled culture, and…
Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Review by Basil Ransome Davies In Young Stalin the author studied his subject’s early career under the microscope. In this epic volume he expands his approach, while still paying attention…
The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir
Translated by Lauren Elkin Review by Karen Langley Simone de Beauvoir is probably best recognised nowadays for her ground-breaking feminist work The Second Sex, as well as her connections with…
Five fascinating facts about fictional asylums
By Anne Goodwin In my professional life as a clinical psychologist, I visited around a dozen of the hundred or so long-stay psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales. Since then,…
The Story of the Country House by Clive Aslet
Reviewed by Harriet My definition of the country house is this: a work of domestic architecture in a rural location, surrounded by its own land (although not necessarily a landed…
The Right Sort of Girl by Anita Rani
Review by Liz Dexter How on earth did I get to where I am today? This is no overnight success story, this is not a fairy tale, not in the…