Written in the wake of an outbreak of statue-toppling driven in part by the death of George Floyd in 2020 and the spread of the Black Lives Matter movement, historian Alex von Tunzelmann (‘AvT’) presents case studies of 12 examples … Continue reading →
The author is a long-term staff writer for ‘New Yorker’ magazine who lives outside the city on the banks of the Hudson river. In 2014 he happened to meet a stranger, a big grizzled man wearing “denim overalls, a faded … Continue reading →
After I found the second book in this series a bit disappointing (see ‘Dead Lions’) I was slow getting round to reading the next ones. Happily, ‘Real Tigers’ and then ‘Spook Street’ lived up to the promise of the original … Continue reading →
Horowitz has written several books continuing the work of famous authors, notably Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes and Ian Fleming/James Bond. I read one of his Holmes books, ‘House of Silk’, and enjoyed it. This one, a Bond story, not so much. … Continue reading →
This meticulously researched spoof of the diary of a late seventeenth-century student in Oxford who kept a dodo in his room will be specially enjoyed by anyone who knows something about the culture that makes Oxford what it was then … Continue reading →
Another ripping success for Hutchinson with this his second, and overall the third “book of the Aftermath” (if this doesn’t make sense, see the footnote here). This time the setting is mostly Oxford, but of course it’s not an Oxford … Continue reading →
As her honour affirms, Dame Janet Suzman is one of the great stage actors of our time. She is also an acclaimed director. So her personal insight into some of the great female roles in Western classic theatre is a … Continue reading →
Not a follow-up but in the same vein as his previously published ‘Fake History‘, Otto English turns his debunking searchlight on “heroes”. In ten chapters each devoted to one hero, he sets out to show that they are all deeply … Continue reading →
This is the second book in the collaboration between Dave Hutchinson and Adam Roberts which started with Hutchinson’s ‘Shelter’. The third title, Hutchinson’s ‘Sanctuary’ has just been published; I have not yet received my copy. I have nothing original to … Continue reading →
In ‘Shelter’, written after completion and publication of the ‘Fractured Europe‘ novels and with the strapline ‘Book One of the Aftermath’, Hutchinson returns to the setting of a post-apocalyptic world. However in this one there is no time distortion, there … Continue reading →