Horizon by Barry Lopez
Review by Peter Reason Barry Lopez is one of the greats of ‘nature writing’ (although he dislikes the term, as it seems do most ‘nature writers’!). He is most widely…
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 his native Norway’s greatest painter, Edvard…
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 was the case when New York…
Cocoa An Exploration of Chocolate, With Recipes, by Sue Quinn
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton There are all sorts of reasons I pick up cookbooks to look at: I like the cover, I like the author, the subject grabs me, someone…
The Art of Life Admin: How to do Less, do it Better, and Live More, by Elizabeth Emens
Review by Liz Dexter Emens is a professor of Law who made the discovery a while back that there was something invisible and other than “chores”, the stuff that goes…
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Non Fiction
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 flatpack wardrobe that the exercise in…
Forms of Enchantment: Writings on Art & Artists by Marina Warner
Review by Helen Parry Although Marina Warner is perhaps best known (and deservedly) for her magnificent work on fairy tales, she has long been writing about other aspects of culture:…
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, surgeons, EMTs, firefighters, and those everyday…
The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
Review by Peter Reason I am approaching my seventy fifth birthday. As I look back, I see my life has been overshadowed by the gathering ecological catastrophe. I have a…
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 of her own “I Am Malala”,…
Europe: A Natural History by Tim Flannery
Review by Peter Reason A natural history, Tim Flannery tells us, encompasses both the natural and the human worlds. This book attends to three big questions: How was Europe formed?…
With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix
Reviewed by Annabel Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize in 2018 this book, which is full of wisdom and compassion, was one of the highlights of a strong shortlist. Although…
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 its centre is the disquieting life…
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. He had one job, at the…
Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis by Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky
Review by Peter Reason I am not sure how I came across this book; I think I followed a link on Twitter. It appealed to me immediately appealed and ordered…
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. I am pretty sure my mum…
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 now not clear to me. Then…
The Adventures of Owen Hatherley in the Post-Soviet Space by Owen Hatherley
Review by Karen Langley Author Owen Hatherley has carved out a niche for himself as one of the UK’s foremost commentators on matters architectural and political; his work exists at…
Dramatic Exchanges, selected & edited by Daniel Rosenthal
Reviewed by Harriet When we think of London’s National Theatre, most of us will envisage the great concrete complex on the South Bank of the Thames, designed by Denis Lasdun…
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 Moon of Gomrath in the 1960s. I…
The Women’s Atlas by Joni Seager
Review by Liz Dexter On the front of the book there’s a quote from Catherine Mayer, Co-Founder of the Women’s Equality Party: “The most important book that will be published…
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 intends the epithets to be applied…
The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons, edited by Bob Mankoff
Foreword by David Remnick Review by Hayley Anderton I’m old enough to remember encyclopedias, and lucky to have grown up in a house that had a Victorian collection of books….
Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt by Chris Naunton
Reviewed by Harriet The civilisation of Ancient Egypt exerts a seemingly eternal fascination. All those pharaohs and their dynasties, stretching back to three thousand years before the birth of Christ,…