Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading by Lucy Mangan
Review by Liz Dexter This is a truly delightful book which is a MUST if you’re a 35-55 year old British person and a great read for everyone else, too….
Dawn of the New Everything: A Journey Through Virtual Reality by Jaron Lanier
Review by Liz Dexter Jaron Lanier has been called the “Father of Virtual Reality” and he’s been involved with many of the main companies in this area of technology for…
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…
Eastern Horizons: Hitchhiking the Silk Road by Levison Wood
Review by Liz Dexter It’s worth noting from the off that this is not a “new” travel book by the popular explorer, but a revisiting of a journey he made…
Icebreaker: A Voyage Far North by Horatio Clare
Horatio Clare, who is quite an accomplished nature and travel writer, having a book on container ships and several on birds to his name, takes a journey to the far…
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…
Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing : Encounters with the Mysteries & Meanings of Language by Daniel Tammet
Reviewed by Liz Dexter You may remember Tammet from his autism memoir, Born on a Blue Day, and his fascination with words and languages as well as numbers continues until the…
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…
ReWild: The Art of Returning to Nature by Nick Baker
Review by Liz Dexter Nick Baker is a well-known naturalist, writer and broadcaster, whose work here, described by the publisher as “a memoir of sorts” but really very different from…
Popular: Why Being Liked is the Secret to Greater Success and Happiness by Mitch Prinstein
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Mitch Prinstein is an expert on popularity, but he uses lots of other people’s experiments as well as his own to back up his claims in…
Irresistible: Why we Can’t Stop Checking, Scrolling, Clicking and Watching by Adam Alter
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Before: Phone on bedside table, checked for the time whenever I woke up and checked for emails / Facebook updates if I woke sufficiently; a “quick”…
Footprints in Spain by Simon Courtauld
Reviewed by Liz Dexter Written by someone who is obviously an expert on and traveller in Spain, this interesting book takes a look at the lives of British people –…
The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book, based loosely on work Perry has done in the media and on television, looks at modern masculinity and how it can possibly be reworked…
Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited by Philip Eade
Reviewed by Liz Dexter When approaching a biography of Evelyn Waugh, one can’t help but assume it’s going to be a portrait of quite a nasty man who was mean…
Charmed Life: The Phenomenal World of Philip Sassoon by Damian Collins
Reviewed by Liz Dexter First of all, because this is the question everyone will ask: yes, Philip Sassoon was a distant cousin of the First World War poet, Siegfried –…
The Prose Factory by D.J. Taylor
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This ambitious book aims to provide a history of what it calls ‘literary life’ in the 20th century, encompassing an examination of writers, reviewers, the editors and…
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book, which won the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, goes into the history of autism, research on autism and related syndromes over the years…
Merchant Adventurers by James Evans
Reviewed by Liz Dexter In the mid-1500s, three ships set off from London to seek a passage to the famed untold riches of the Far East through a northern passage…