May 21, 2020 Well-kept Secrets: The Story of William Wordsworth by Andrew Wordsworth Reviewed by Harriet As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wordsworth, one of England’s most celebrated…
March 17, 2020 James Joyce by Edna O’Brien Review by Rob Spence Edna O’Brien’s position as one of the most significant modern Irish writers is undisputed, and here, in this reissue of…
February 13, 2020 Veronica by Veronica Lake Reviewed by Harriet I wonder how many people today have even heard of Veronica Lake. There was a time, though a relatively brief one,…
October 29, 2019 Home Work by Julie Andrews with Emma Walton Hamilton Review by Annabel Julie Andrews’s first volume of memoir, Home, told us of her childhood, growing up during the war, and…
October 15, 2019 Gloucester Crescent by William Miller Review by Annabel Nestled between Primrose Hill and Camden Town in NW1, it’s hard to believe that Gloucester Crescent (and Regents Park Terrace which…
October 10, 2019 Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie Review by Peter Reason Kathleen Jamie is primarily known as a poet, but her prose writing is eagerly anticipated and widely acclaimed. Surfacing is…
October 1, 2019 Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell Review by Simon As the cover of Confessions of a Bookseller tells us, Bythell is an international bestseller. A couple of years ago, The…
September 17, 2019 Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Wildest Horse Race by Lara Prior-Palmer Review by Liz Dexter Lara is by her own account a bit scatter-brained. She’s been described as away with the fairies, didn’t see the…
July 30, 2019 This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein Review by Max Dunbar There’s a common British anecdote that goes: ‘We had some American friends here on holiday, and on the third day…
May 21, 2019 The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology by Mark Boyle Reviewed by Rebecca Foster It’s common practice nowadays, when publicizing a book review published in an online venue, to tag the author on social…
May 9, 2019 Little Boy by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Review by Karen Langley American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is perhaps more regularly acknowledged nowadays for his pivotal role in pioneering the Beat Generation; from…
May 7, 2019 So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch by Karl Ove Knausgaard Translated by Ingvild Burkey Reviewed by Jean Morris This is a book for fans of Karl Ove Knausgaard who also love the work of…
April 30, 2019 The Kindness of Strangers by Salka Viertel Reviewed by Lizzy Siddal There are times when an autobiography by someone you’ve never heard of just slots into your current reading stream. Such…
April 2, 2019 Walter Gropius: Visionary Founder of the Bauhaus by Fiona MacCarthy Review by Rob Spence It probably doesn’t occur to many people as they struggle to fix bolt B to batten F of the Ikea…
March 26, 2019 War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Looking out from my inconsequential life, I’m often envious of people who save lives on a regular basis – doctors,…
March 12, 2019 Let Her Fly: A Father’s Journey and the Fight for Equality by Ziauddin Yousafzai with Louise Carpenter Review by Liz Dexter I received a copy of this book by Malala Yousafzai’s father from NetGalley and then managed to find a copy…
February 19, 2019 The Photographer at Sixteen by George Szirtes Review by Rob Spence This remarkably compelling memoir is, surprisingly, the first prose publication of George Szirtes, one of our most distinguished poets. At…
February 14, 2019 I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux Review by Max Dunbar Alpha males in print tend to be omega males in real life. Friedrich Nietzsche was not rich during his lifetime….
February 7, 2019 The Real Enid Blyton by Nadia Cohen Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long When I was a little girl I used to receive the latest Famous Five book by Enid Blyton every Christmas….
February 5, 2019 No Place to Lay One’s Head by Francoise Frenkel Translated by Stephanie Smee Reviewed by Harriet When I was first offered this book for review, I turned it down, for reasons that are…
January 15, 2019 Where Shall We Run To? by Alan Garner Reviewed by Annabel I’ve been a fan of Alan Garner’s novels ever since my childhood when I first encountered The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel The…
December 6, 2018 Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: the Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce by Colm Tóibín Review by Rob Spence Tóibín’s title, of course, comes from Lady Caroline Lamb’s snap judgement of Byron; it’s not clear whether the author here…
November 1, 2018 The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal by Horatio Clare Review by Peter Reason Reading the title of this book and seeing the book cover, the prospective reader might, as did I, expect a…
October 18, 2018 Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography by Eric Idle Reviewed by Annabel Eric Idle is perhaps the most elusive of the Pythons. He’s the one who wrote on his own, the one whose…
September 20, 2018 Mrs Gaskell & Me: Two Women, Two Love Stories, Two Centuries Apart By Nell Stevens Reviewed by Rebecca Foster It started with a misreading of some nineteenth-century handwriting. In 2013 Nell Stevens began a PhD at King’s College, London….
