The Fresh and the Salt: The Story of the Solway by Ann Lingard
Reviewed by Peter Reason When I was a small boy—and this memory must reach back to around 1950—I played with a wooden puzzle made up of the historic counties of…
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack
Reviewed by Terence Jagger Katie Mack is an American astrophysicist, but her writing is very informal and almost journalistic or chatty – which is great for a subject like this,…
The Passenger: Japan
Reviewed by Terence Jagger Early last year, Europa launched a new imprint “for explorers of the world”: The Passenger. Now, the list includes Berlin, India, Turkey, Brazil and Greece. But…
The Frozen River: Seeking Silence in the Himalaya by James Crowden
Reviewed by Peter Reason Opening this book, I am immediately drawn in: ‘Silence, snow and solitude have got hold of me and will not let me go. I am possessed…
The Stubborn Light of Things by Melissa Harrison & The Consolation of Nature by Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott & Peter Marren
By Rebecca Foster The Stubborn Light of Things collects five and a half years’ worth of Melissa Harrison’s monthly Nature Notebook columns for The Times. The book falls into two…
I Don’t Want to Go to the Taj Mahal: Stories of a Birmingham Boy by Charlie Hill
Review by Eleanor Updegraff It can be difficult to get other people interested in your life. Many authors have tried, many have failed – often simply by taking themselves too…
Fifty Words for Snow by Nancy Campbell
Reviewed by Liz Dexter I greatly enjoyed reading Nancy Campbell’s meditation on the icy places of the world, The Library of Ice. last year, so when I was alerted that…
The Fragments of My Father by Sam Mills
Reviewed by Harriet Sam Mills’ ‘memoir of madness, love, and being a carer’ starts on a Friday night in early 2016. Sam’s father has been locked in a bathroom for two…
Numbers Don’t Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World, by Vaclac Smil
Reviewed by Annabel If you, or a potential recipient of this book for Christmas, are a fan of Tim Harford on BBC Radio 4’s More Or Less – a programme…
Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel, by Rachel Holmes
Reviewed by Rob Spence I recently watched the Ethiopia episode of Afua Hirsch’s excellent series African Renaissance, in which I was startled to see an interview with Sylvia Pankhurst’s daughter-in-law,…
The Haunting of Amelia Fielding, by Kate Summerscale
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies Believe it or not, the occult is always a source of fascination. For the persuaded, it offers an expanded view of reality, free from the constraints…
It’s the End of the World by Adam Roberts
Reviewed by Annabel I learned a new word this year. ‘Eschatology’ is defined as ‘the part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the final destiny of the soul and…
Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman by Rebecca Tamás
Review by Peter Reason. This elegant and engaging collection of seven essays by poet and critic Rebecca Tamás—her first prose collection—is beautifully produced as a slim volume by the independent…
Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the world by Mark Aldridge
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long When I was younger and read every Agatha Christie book I could lay my hands on, she always produced a book at the festive season and…
Follies: An Architectural Journey by Rory Fraser
Reviewed by Liz Dexter A delightful little book put out by a relatively new publisher founded in 2017 with a rather intriguing list, this would make a lovely gift for…
Work: A History of How We Spend our Time by James Suzman
Reviewed by Liz Dexter I will say right away that this is probably not the book you think it will be. The subtitle suggests it will be a history of…
A Sound Mind by Paul Morley
Reviewed by Karen Langley Paul Morley made his name as a music critic for the New Musical Express back in the halcyon punk days of the 1970s and 1980s; a…
The Book Lover’s Quiz Book: Novel Conundrums by Gary Wigglesworth
Reviewed by Annabel Gary Wigglesworth’s twitter feed was something of a godsend on Tuesday evenings during furlough earlier this summer. The former bookseller who now works in publishing had been…
Michael Tippett, The Biography by Oliver Soden
Reviewed by Peter Hobson This is a very long, extensively referenced account of the life and music of Michael Tippett, a composer who is often regarded as someone who never…
The Secret Life of Books: Why They Mean More than Words by Tom Mole
Paperback review by Liz Dexter Tom Mole, as Professor of English Literature and Book History at the University of Edinburgh, is certainly qualified to write this Christmas-present-worthy joy of a…
The Spirit of the Blitz – edited by Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I thought I’d learnt to check how long a book is before I agreed or offered to review it, but I’m in this case I had…
The Artful Dickens by John Mullan
Reviewed by Harriet Professor John Mullan’s name will be familiar to many readers: he writes regularly in the Guardian and the London Review of Books, is the author of several…
Wintering: A Season With Geese by Stephen Rutt
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Stephen Rutt and his partner move to Dumfries, to a flat near the Solway Firth, just as he’s finishing writing his first (wonderful) book The Seafarers…
Happy Half-Hours: Selected Writings of A.A. Milne
Review by Simon Thomas You might be familiar with the beautiful little hardbacks from Notting Hill Editions, where they select essays and other writings from across the range of an…