Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen by Rory Muir
Reviewed by Harriet A few months after Pride and Prejudice was published, Jane Austen visited her brother Henry in London. The opening words of Rory Muir’s book might lead the…
Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers Toward Truth, Healing, and Repair, by Hilary Giovale
Review by Liz Dexter I was immersed in a white settler myth that had always allowed me to perceive them [her ancestors] as innocent bystanders rather than oppressors. I’ve been…
The Golden Road by William Dalrymple
Reviewed by Harriet India has always had a great attraction for me. I didn’t manage to go there until I was in my thirties, but I’ve visited countless times since…
EL CID: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Mercenary, by Nora Berend
Review by Michael Eaude Exposing Fake History – FRANCO’S MURDEROUS FANTASIES El Cid is a legendary hero, a fearsome warrior who decisively defeated the Moors in the fight for a…
Tracker by Alexis Wright
Review by Liz Dexter, 25 March 2025 In his life, he had made space for himself in the world of those who enjoyed the highest influence in Australia, as he…
A Man of Few Words by Carlo Greppi
Translated by Howard Curtis Review by Karen Langley, 6 Mar 2025 Italian author and chemist Primo Levi is possibly one of the best-known commentators on the Holocaust; he began writing…
Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942-2022 – by Frank Trentmann
Review by Liz Dexter Over the course of the last eighty years, Germany has gone through a remarkable moral and material regeneration. The two have pulled the country in opposite…
The King’s Loot: The Greatest Royal Jewellery Heist in History by Richard Wallace
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long It is always misleading to read the serialisation of a book in the newspapers. The paper in question will always focus on the more sensational aspects…
Ecology & Environment, Natural World
History & Politics, Feminism, Sociology
Non Fiction
Travel & the World
Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain by Corinne Fowler
In expanding and resourcing public understandings of the countryside’s colonial past, we can tell our islands’ stories and address colonial legacies from a position of knowledge rather than fear. Corinne…
Airplane Mode: Travels in the Ruins of Tourism by Shahnaz Habib
Review by Liz Dexter How intrepid you are as a traveler depends, at least partly, on how entitled you feel to travel. On whether there’s an army base nearby with…
A Ride Across America by Simon Parker
Review by Liz Dexter Fascinatingly, many of the small towns I found along the way seemed to be stuck in a time warp. I cycled past rusted 1940s Studebakers and…
Parallel Lives by Maryam Diener
Review by Karen Langley When most people think of the high profile spies of the 20th century, names like Burgess, McLean and of course Kim Philby are probably the first…
Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers – a personal history, by Anne Somerset
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long Queen Elizabeth II had fifteen prime ministers during her reign. Queen Victoria had fourteen. The weekly meetings between Queen Elizabeth and her prime minister were one…
An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Civilisation to Independence by Zeinab Badawi
Reviewed by Liz Dexter I would like to say to the non-African reader of this book that I hope I have demonstrated that Africa has a history, that it is…
Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty, by Alexander Larman
Review by Elaine Simpson-Long When Alexander Larman wrote The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication about Edward VIII, he had no idea that it would be the beginning of…
Head North by Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham
Review by Rob Spence When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced in October last year that the multi-billion pound rail infrastructure programme HS2 would not, after all, be completed, leaving Manchester…
Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s hidden histories, by Amitav Ghosh
Review by Peter Reason The term ‘narco state’ usually refers to those countries whose economy has been taken over by the cultivation of the opium poppy and the criminal gangs…
The Future of Trust by Ros Taylor – blogtour
The Futures Series from indie publisher Melville House UK recently launched with four titles that couldn’t be more different from each other: going from Songwriting, to Trust, to War Crimes…
Charles III: New King, New Court: The Inside Story, by Robert Hardman
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long There is a plethora of journalists who are labelled Royal Experts and I sometimes wonder how you reach these giddy heights, if that is how you…
You’re All Talk: Why We Are What We Speak by Rob Drummond
Review by Lix Dexter This is a book about the relationship between how we speak and who we are. More precisely, it’s a book about the role of spoken language,…
Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII, by Jane Marguerite Tippett
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long The author of this book, Jane Marguerite Tippett, came across a previously unknown cache of letters, memoranda and notes written by the Duke of Windsor when she…
Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science by Athene Donald
Review by Liz Dexter This book is written for anyone who is wondering why, in spite of decades of effort to promote change, the numbers of women pursuing careers in…
Dockland: Smokestacks and Slums: In the Shadows of British Industry, by Cedric Greenwood
Reviewed by Gill Davies I was intrigued by the title of this book, which didn’t announce itself as a traditional industrial history, and by its format – it looks rather…
Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London by Charlie Taverner
Reviewed by Harriet Nowadays, when most people hear the term street food, they will be thinking about the emergence in the past ten or so years of a wonderful range…