Review by Liz Dexter While he’s now a publisher and editor with his own imprint, Hodkinson grew up in a terrace house in Rochdale with one book in the house…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of Covid-19 chronicles. My favourites of the twenty-some I’ve read thus far have come from the…
Review by Liz Dexter Nightingale was the first female DJ on Radio One, having been a journalist and live TV presenter before then and ready for the tough time she…
Review by Karen Langley The bicentenary of the birth of Fyodor Dostoevsky has seen a flurry of books about the man and his work. I covered Alex Christofi’s Dostoevsky in…
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies What a prodigious event this book is. Highsmith was an assiduous note-keeper and diarist. The calendar spread is 1941-1995. The editor has condensed ‘an estimated eight…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long A few years ago I read Jane Ridley’s biography of Edward VII, which I found a fascinating, fully rounded portrayal of his life and personality. In…
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…
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…
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…
By Rebecca Foster Two recent memoirs have shone a spotlight on the fauna and management strategies of the New Forest, a place my Hampshire-raised husband and I have often visited…
Review by Basil Ransome-Davies No one expects an approving biography of Joseph Stalin any more than they do the Spanish Inquisition. He is a murderous monster, a devil from a…
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long When I was about eleven years old I remember reading an article about the Abdication in the Sunday Express, which my mother used to take each…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long In 2019 I attended a lecture given by Toby Faber and found him to be as stylish and witty as his illustrious friends and relations, and…
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth The last item of clothing that I bought was a pair of pink dungarees from M&S children’s department nearly two years ago. So I must confess…
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stuck with a bunch of friends who seemed to think I was something other than what I was; guilty about growing up British in a Greek…
Translated by Alice Menzies Review by Karen Langley The concept of “the banality of evil”, coined by philosopher Hannah Arendt, has become famous (some might say notorious) since she developed…
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 one of the most influential guitarists…
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 of interpretation remains, the problem of…
Review by Karen Langley Despite their groundbreaking achievements as poets, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton are still too often remembered for their dramatic lives and tragic ends. A pair of…
Reviewed by Harriet Back in 2004 I had the great pleasure of meeting David Storey – rugby player, painter, novelist, poet, playwright and filmmaker – who had agreed to let…
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 my dear Saint Lawrence on his…
Review by Karen Langley It could be argued that much fiction is in a sense autobiographical, and one man who certainly poured his life into his work, drawing on his…
Review by Karen Langley Monica Jones, the subject of a new biography by John Sutherland, is a fascinating figure who, up until now, has generally been discussed in terms of…
Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth Why country X? Why language Y? Anyone who has lived abroad or taken up a foreign language will be familiar with those questions. So, too, Polly…
