book reviews and features
Afua Hirsch: Brit(ish) review - essential reading on identitySunday, 04 February 2018
Usually extracts in newspapers should stimulate the appetite of the reader to get with it; this is a rare moment when the glimpses afforded to Afua Hirsch’s Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and... Read more... |
Julian Barnes: The Only Story review - passion, pain and sorrow in SurreySunday, 28 January 2018
From his debut Metroland, right up to the Man Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending, the prospect of a road not taken has haunted the mild and mediocre narrators of Julian Barnes... Read more... |
Dave Eggers: The Monk of Mokha review - how to become a grand master of coffeeSunday, 28 January 2018
A macchiato may never taste the same again. If you’ve ever wondered about the politics and history behind your cup of designer coffee, The Monk of Mokha will answer all your questions,... Read more... |
Bruno Maçães: The Dawn of Eurasia review - middle of nowhereSunday, 21 January 2018
Part travelogue and part broad analysis of the current and future challenges facing the EU, the premise of Bruno Maçães’s new book The Dawn of Eurasia is to “use travel to provide an... Read more... |
David Lodge: Writer’s Luck - A Memoir 1976-1991 review - literary days, in detailSunday, 14 January 2018
Metaphor, metonymy, simile and synecdoche, anyone? FR Leavis, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Derrida, Frank Kermode? If any of this, and more, turns you on, this lengthy... Read more... |
Nick Coleman: Voices - How a Great Singer Can Change Your Life, review - earworms exploredSunday, 14 January 2018
Readers familiar with Nick Coleman’s 2012 memoir The Train in the Night will know before embarking on this book that the author suffered the worst possible fate for a music journalist:... Read more... |
Best of 2017: BooksSunday, 31 December 2017
With a clownish bully currently installed in the White House, the 2017 Man Booker Prize aptly went to a... Read more... |
Nicholas Blincoe: Bethlehem - Biography of a Town review - too few wise men but remarkable womenSaturday, 23 December 2017
Suitably enough, Nicholas Blincoe begins his personal ... Read more... |
Jenny Uglow: Mr Lear - A Life of Art and Nonsense review - a lonely Victorian life, so richly illustratedSunday, 17 December 2017
Jenny Uglow’s biography of Edward Lear (1812-1888) is a meander, almost day by day, through the long and... Read more... |
Naum Kleiman: Eisenstein on Paper review - a lavish journey into the unconsciousSunday, 17 December 2017
"From drawing, via the theatre, to the cinema". Naum Kleiman's introductory qualification of Sergey Eisenstein's own self-perceived line in his Film Form is one that he follows in a... Read more... |
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