August 3, 2021 Broken Greek by Pete Paphides Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stuck with a bunch of friends who seemed to think I was something other than what I was; guilty about…
July 16, 2021 On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt by Ann Heberlein Translated by Alice Menzies Review by Karen Langley The concept of “the banality of evil”, coined by philosopher Hannah Arendt, has become famous (some…
July 13, 2021 Beeswing: Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice 1967-75 by Richard Thompson Review by Annabel There are still people who doubtless haven’t heard of Richard Thompson. To those of us in the know though, he is…
July 6, 2021 Dreaming of Rose: A Biographer’s Journal, by Sarah LeFanu Review by Helen Parry Reconstructing anyone’s life poses enormous difficulties, for however copious the evidence of letters, diaries, journals, and eye-witness accounts, the problem…
July 2, 2021 Three Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath & Anne Sexton by Gail Crowther Review by Karen Langley Despite their groundbreaking achievements as poets, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton are still too often remembered for their dramatic lives…
June 29, 2021 A Stinging Delight by David Storey Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2004 I had the great pleasure of meeting David Storey – rugby player, painter, novelist, poet, playwright and filmmaker…
June 24, 2021 Burning Man: The Ascent of D.H. Lawrence by Frances Wilson Reviewed by Harriet I always feel as if I stood naked for the fire of Almighty God to go through me….I often think of…
June 7, 2021 Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life by Alex Christofi Review by Karen Langley It could be argued that much fiction is in a sense autobiographical, and one man who certainly poured his life…
June 4, 2021 Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me by John Sutherland Review by Karen Langley Monica Jones, the subject of a new biography by John Sutherland, is a fascinating figure who, up until now, has…
June 4, 2021 Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Why country X? Why language Y? Anyone who has lived abroad or taken up a foreign language will be familiar…
June 3, 2021 Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir, by Marina Warner Review by Helen Parry In spring 1944 the English officer Esmond Warner attended a party in Bari hosted by a widow, Signora Terzulli, and…
June 1, 2021 The Muse by Nell Dunn Review by Annabel There is a particular sub-genre of memoir that almost goes into biography but fundamentally remains a memoir. I’m talking about memoirs…
May 20, 2021 Valentine Ackland: A Transgressive Life by Frances Bingham Reviewed by Gill Davies This is a remarkable book about a remarkable woman. Valentine Ackland (1906-1969) was “transgressive” in so many ways. She was…
May 13, 2021 The Fighter Fell in Love: A Spanish Civil War Memoir by James R. Jump Reviewed by Michael Eaude This is the memoir of a volunteer to the International Brigades, formed to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War…
April 27, 2021 Whitman in Washington by Kenneth Price Reviewed by Rob Spence Kenneth Price is the co-director of the Walt Whitman Archive, and one of the leading experts on the poet, having…
April 15, 2021 Circles and Squares: The Lives and Loves of the Hampstead Modernists by Caroline Maclean Review by Karen Langley The early part of the 20th century was a period when modern art was flourishing. New ways of living were…
April 13, 2021 Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker Reviewed by Lory Widmer-Hess Schizophrenic. The very word is a trigger for aversion, a signal to run away, with its spiky, spluttered consonants and…
April 8, 2021 Heavy Light: A Journey through Madness, Mania and Healing by Horatio Clare Reviewed by Peter Reason It was on a family skiing holiday that Horatio Clare finally went mad. This was the culmination of a period…
March 23, 2021 Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries 1918-1938, edited by Simon Heffer Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long When I was a little girl I kept a diary. It was pink and fluffy with a lock and a…
March 18, 2021 Keats by Lucasta Miller Reviewed by Harriet It may not have escaped your attention that 2021 is the 200th anniversary of the death of John Keats. Yes, on…
March 9, 2021 Cary Grant, the Making of a Hollywood Legend by Mark Glancy Review by Elaine Simpson-Long There is a scene in Charade, a 1964 film which Cary Grant made with Audrey Hepburn, in which the following…
March 4, 2021 The Panic Years by Nell Frizzell Reviewed by Harriet ‘Every millennial woman should have this on her bookshelf’ says Pandora Sykes on the front of Nell Frizzell’s new book. New…
March 4, 2021 She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh Reviewed by Basil Ransome Davies Forty years ago I spent some time on the motel strip at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to do some hiking…
February 25, 2021 Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh Review by Peter Reason I have been totally absorbed in Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Thin Places since it arrived in the morning mail and I…
February 23, 2021 Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo by Sam Mills Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Remember the 1990s? It was a decade where lads’ mags decorated magazine shelves in supermarkets and where Men Are from…
