Review by Hayley Anderton The first book I met when I started working in the wine trade was Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine. Every shop I worked in…
Review by Liz Dexter “If I had any moral principles to declare, I came to realize, they were extremely simplistic. First, there was the supreme importance of kindness as a…
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster Bristol friends and BBC colleagues Ben Macdonald and Nick Gates set out to chronicle a year in the life of a traditional Herefordshire orchard that has…
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…
Review by Peter Reason This book offers a revision of our understanding of human cultural history, and so opens possibilities for different, maybe more creative and liberating, arrangements for contemporary…
Review by Annabel I watched an awful lot of telly in the 1970s, my formative teenage years. It was thus inevitable that between the early evening slots occupied by Top…
Review by Liz Dexter Open to global flows of capital but largely closed to political change, Singapore is a reform-minded dictator’s dream, suggesting that a country can enjoy the prosperity…
Review by Liz Dexter “For Japan’s lotus blossom, praying mantis and bear, we have bramble, wood louse and urban fox” Lev Parikian, a writer, birdwatcher and conductor, had already started…
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…
Reviewed by Harriet My definition of the country house is this: a work of domestic architecture in a rural location, surrounded by its own land (although not necessarily a landed…
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 Liz Dexter This book is primarily concerned with explaining how society, as it is currently arranged, often makes trans people’s lives unnecessarily difficult. Yet, in posing solutions to these…
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…
Translated by Wendy Wheatley Reviewed by Harriet Adriana Valerio is an Italian historian and theologian. One of the first women in Italy to be awarded a theology degree, she has…
Review by Annabel Tim Walker’s name may ring a bell, particularly with broadsheet readers. During his career as a journalist, he has written for The Observer and The Daily Telegraph,…
Review by Annabel Who hasn’t been enthralled by the idea of there being ‘Life on Mars’ even if said life ends up as the first humans to visit the red…
Review by Liz Dexter I would like the message of this chapter to be that we should all be more tolerant of people’s voice quality and pitch ranges. As a…
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 Basil Ransome-Davies Andy Warhol (if it was he, who disowned the soft impeachment) was kidding when he said that in the future everyone would be world-famous for fifteen…
Review by Liz Dexter Robyn Lea has a theory that there is a new Renaissance happening among creative women, who are expressing themselves and their creativity in every aspect of…
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 Harriet If there’s one thing that this impressively learned and wide-ranging volume amply demonstrates, it’s that an interest in magic and witchcraft has persisted through the ages in…
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…
