Review by Rob Spence Unless you are Tristram Shandy, you probably don’t know when and where you were conceived. If you are Harriet Devine, on the other hand, you know…
Translated by Helen Weaver and Leo Raditsa Reviewed by Rob Spence If you were asked to suggest which real-life character was to be played by Woody Harrelson in his next…
Translated by Simon Beattie Review by Karen Langley Felix Hartlaub is a name relatively unknown in the English-speaking world: the son of an art historian/museum director who fell foul of…
Reviewed by Harriet ‘two sisters, four nights, one city’ is the subtitle of this riveting new novel by Lucy Caldwell. I don’t think I’ve ever used the term riveting in…
Reviewed by Basil Ransome-Davies As E. H Carr’s masterly introduction to the study of history, What Is History?, explains, the idea of a fully objective, neutral and truthful history is…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton This is one of two recent releases from Handheld Press that cover aspects of wartime experience – in this case life in a huge munitions factory…
Reviewed by Hayley Anderton I thought I’d learnt to check how long a book is before I agreed or offered to review it, but I’m in this case I had…
Translated by Margaret Bettauer Dembo Reviewed by Gill Davies The novel is set in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and was first published in German in 1942. Seghers was a…
Reviewed by Helen Parry Among the many people Anne Sebba interviewed for this book was the playwright Jean-Claude Grumberg. During the German occupation of France, Grumberg’s Jewish mother paid a…
Helen: Hello Anne! Let me first say that I was bowled over by Les Parisiennes – it’s a real tour de force of narrative history, totally absorbing and allowing the…
Reviewed by Harriet Subtitled ‘A History of Women and Desire’, this book explores the fields of literature, film and popular romance. Ranging from the early nineteenth century to the present…
Translated and annotated by David Ball Review by Terence Jagger This is a sombre book, the diary of a thoughtful but determined man – a teacher and writer who, 50…
Reviewed by Simon They’ve done it again! Slightly Foxed have brought out yet another fascinating, entertaining, and well-written memoir – and another one that I would never have heard of…
Reviewed by Annabel It’s been some years since I read an Alan Furst novel, although I own up to having a shelf-full of them. He’s prolific – A Hero in France is…
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….
Reviewed by Falaise Back in the ancient mists of time – or, at least, 1986 – a youthful version of me (think a bad David Bowie hairstyle perched on top…
Reviewed by Danielle Helen Humphreys writes some of the most lyrical prose I have come across. I’m slowly reading my way through her work, some of it read in pre-blogging…
Reviewed by Victoria In this outstanding work of cinema history, Mark Harris follows the fortunes of five big name Hollywood directors who enlisted in the wake of Pearl Harbour to…
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long This is the third in a series of books featuring Clara Vine, a film actress in pre-war Berlin. If you have not read the earlier titles Black…
Interview by Annabel A: Firstly, congratulations on A War of Flowers! It took the life and career of Clara Vine (Anglo-German film actress and British spy) to new and ever more thrilling…
Translated by Sandra Smith Reviewed by Harriet The Fires of Autumn, first published in France in 1957, is the most recent of Irène Némirovsky’s novels to be translated into English….
Written by Victoria It’s the summer of 1940 and Lisbon in Portugal is bursting at the seams with people desperate to leave mainland Europe and the march of the Nazis….
Reviewed by Andrew Blackman Pick up a book set in World War Two, and you have certain expectations. These expectations are largely frustrated by First Time Solo, and that’s a good…
Reviewed by Claire If I were knowingly heading into an active theatre of war, I like to think I would go armed with the necessary information, wardrobe, and exit plan…
