Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson
Reviewed by Rob Spence 2016 is clearly going to be the year of Shakespeare, though it seems rather gruesome to ‘celebrate’ the anniversary of his death. In 1964, when the…
Out in the Midday Sun by Margaret Shennan
Reviewed by Rob Spence The title of this book recalls Noel Coward’s jaunty song about the mad English, of course, and perhaps suggests that this will be a light-hearted romp…
The Bitter Taste of Victory by Lara Feigel
Reviewed by Rob Spence This book is a companion piece to Feigel’s The Love-Charm of Bombs (reviewed here), which examined the lives of some prominent writers in London during the Blitz and afterwards….
Reading Manchester
By Rob Spence After the recent Budget, the Treasury published a document outlining the government’s plans for regional spending. In among the references to particular cities and regions was a…
Ezra Pound: Poet, Volume III by A. David Moody
Reviewed by Rob Spence A. David Moody’s monumental biography of Ezra Pound reaches its conclusion with this third and final volume. Having taken the story of Pound’s increasingly erratic life…
London Rain by Nicola Upson
Reviewed by Rob Spence Josephine Tey was a writer of unusual detective fiction in the so-called Golden Age of the genre. Her best-known, and most unusual novel was The Daughter of…
Spy Out the Land by Jeremy Duns
Reviewed by Rob Spence Don’t read this book. Don’t, that is, unless you have read Jeremy Duns’s previous three Paul Dark spy thrillers, because this continues the story from where…
Ezra Pound: Poet – The Epic Years by A. David Moody
Reviewed by Rob Spence I’ve been teaching Modernism in higher education for over two decades now, and have therefore spent quite a lot of time reading and discussing the work…
The Unexpected Professor by John Carey
Reviewed by Rob Spence John Carey has had a long and distinguished career in academia, and this autobiography records his journey from childhood in the war to his current position…
Field of Shadows by Dan Waddell
Reviewed by Terence Jagger When I first heard of an English cricket tour to Germany in 1937, I assumed it was essentially subversive – that the tour would have been…