July 9, 2020 Expectation by Anna Hope Review by Max Dunbar Looking back at her hard living past, singer Florence Welch writes in Vogue: I wonder if my young self would be…
July 30, 2019 This Really Isn’t About You by Jean Hannah Edelstein Review by Max Dunbar There’s a common British anecdote that goes: ‘We had some American friends here on holiday, and on the third day…
April 25, 2019 Metropolis by Philip Kerr Reviewed by Max Dunbar Swan Song (For A City) Stephen King once wrote of the ‘Grey Havens’ as a kind of afterlife where fictional…
February 14, 2019 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….
June 14, 2018 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…
March 13, 2018 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…
December 7, 2017 American War by Omar el Akkad Reviewed by Max Dunbar Altered States of America Joan Didion’s recently released notebooks capture the feeling of the American South as it must have…
November 7, 2017 Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown Reviewed by Max Dunbar Nightshade Upon Magic The online OED defines starstruck as ‘Fascinated or greatly impressed by famous people, especially those connected with…
April 30, 2015 The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies by Martin Millar Reviewed by Max Dunbar The Altar of Pity: Martin Millar’s Athens ‘I’ve tried setting a novel in ancient Athens before,’ writes Martin Millar, in…
October 16, 2014 Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh by John Lahr Reviewed by Max Dunbar Perfect Tenn: A Life of Tennessee Williams An inconvenience of biography is that before the interesting stuff is revealed, one…
July 15, 2014 The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing By Max Dunbar A decade or so into his career as a bestselling novelist, horror writer Stephen King ran into problems. He was drinking…
