The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder
Reviewed by Max Dunbar Why Everything Old Is New Again If I had to recommend a historian on the twentieth century terrors to someone who was coming new to it,…
Islamic Civilization in Thirty Lives: The First 1000 Years by Chase F. Robinson
A beautiful object, as you can see from the cover image, this is published to be an accessible introduction to pre-modern Islam, looking at thirty of the individuals who founded…
Rex V. Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders by Laura Thompson
Review by Karen Langley The Thompson-Bywaters murder case (also known as “The Ilford Murder”) is notorious, but I think most of my previous knowledge of it comes from two sources:…
Ghosts of the Tsunami Richard Lloyd Parry
Review by Terence Jagger Japan suffers multitudes of earthquakes every year and is among the best prepared countries in the world. Tsunami, too, are common, and both are planned for…
Rise Up, Women! The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes by Diane Atkinson
Review by Liz Dexter This is a huge book in many senses of the word. It’s physically impressive enough to have arrived in a slightly alarmingly large box (thank you…
The Good Mothers by Alex Perry
Review by Max Dunbar Operation Shame Nowadays, when we think of the mafia, it’s with a sense of nostalgia. David Chase captured the feel in classic mob drama The Sopranos….
The Lion and the Unicorn by George Orwell
Review by Karen Langley Although George Orwell’s name resonates most strongly with us nowadays because of his great novels – in particular “Nineteen Eighty Four”, which seems to become more…
My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown
Reviewed by Liz Dexter It’s the book everyone’s been waiting for that fills in the gaps left by Tony Blair’s autobiography and the various books on the financial crisis, the…
Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann
Reviewed by Harriet Most people probably think that the presence of black people in Britain began with the large influx of nearly 500 who came over from Jamaica in 1948…
Between the Wars 1919-1939 by Philip Ziegler
Review by Terence Jagger So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years –Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres T S Eliot, Four…
Women and Power by Mary Beard
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Mary Beard is described as being ‘Britain’s best–known classicist on the inside front flap of this book. She’s also known for having experienced her unfair share…
Long Road from Jarrow: A Journey Through Britain Then and Now by Stuart Maconie
Review by Liz Dexter This entertaining and thought-provoking book is both a state-of-the-nation essay and an exercise in historical research and re-enactment and Maconie, being a seasoned writer and man…
Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley
Reviewed by Harriet If you’re a watcher of historical TV documentaries, you won’t need introducing to Lucy Worsley, who presents history programmes for the BBC, in which she often dresses…
Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s by Anne Sebba
Reviewed by Helen Parry Among the many people Anne Sebba interviewed for this book was the playwright Jean-Claude Grumberg. During the German occupation of France, Grumberg’s Jewish mother paid a…
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life by Janet Todd
Review by Harriet ‘Aphra Behn was a woman who wore masks’. So says Janet Todd at the beginning of this monumental, newly revised biography of Behn, who was a prolific…
Walking in Berlin by Franz Hessel
Translated by Amanda DeMarco Reviewed by Rob Spence Berlin is one of my favourite cities, and I have spent a lot of time walking around its fascinating streets. So the…
The Novel of the Century – The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables by David Bellos
Review by Annabel Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is 150 years old in 2017, and doubtless there will be much attention paid them including this book by David Bellos, renowned professor…
Terms and Conditions by Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Review by Simon Slightly Foxed are beloved for their reprints of memoirs from across the twentieth century, but they also have published a handful of new books – most of…
The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor by Elizabeth Norton
Reviewed by Laura Marriott The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor concerns itself with the potential marriage between the teenage Elizabeth Tudor and Thomas Seymour. The book focuses primarily on Seymour, his story…
Learning from Baby P by Sharon Shoesmith
Reviewed by Anne Goodwin A civilised society must put structures in place to protect the vulnerable. When the vulnerable are children at risk from the actions or inactions of their…
Diary of the Dark Years 1940 – 1944 by Jean Guéhenno
Translated and annotated by David Ball Review by Terence Jagger This is a sombre book, the diary of a thoughtful but determined man – a teacher and writer who, 50…
The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood
Reviewed by Harriet This gorgeous book is subtitled ‘Life in the English Country House Between the Wars’, and certainly that is part of its subject. But it’s a book with…
But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
Reviewed by Simon How many non-fiction books do you come across which combine literature, music, television, sports, science, and aliens? Not that many, I’m going to wager – but, then,…
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing
Reviewed by Marina Sofia There are some who crave solitude, others who fear it. There are those who crave some idealized version of solitude, à la Thoreau, absorbing the lessons…