This is a hefty block of a book, but with the subtitle of 'A Forgotten History', it ought to be. It was written for the 2016 TV series, which is now almost out of watching time (maybe the BBC will let it be seen again soon), and occasionally the writing does betray the cadences of … Continue reading David Olusoga, Black and British
This novel annoyed me so much, for its ignorance, or wilful avoidance, of historical accuracy and plausibility. But, if it isn't historical fiction, then it's a deeply uncomfortable read because of its implausibility: we are reading about the systematised prostitution of children in a fantasical story about physical damage in a brutalised society. Some reviewers … Continue reading Xan Brooks, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times
Was this the original baggy monster of a novel? It's huge, and quite baggy, and has no place on my shelves now that I've read it, because its vastness is not matched by re-readability. However, some parts are very good indeed, so it's a patchy reading experience. I found myself skipping the rather tedious romance … Continue reading Arnold Bennett, Imperial Palace
This novel was hypnotically uncomfortable to read, but also so rich in detail, colour, life, event, that I couldn't help but keep going. I know a great deal more about modern Cairo than I did before, and I think I understand more of the horrific nature of Egyptian social and political corruption that brought about … Continue reading Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building
Update: The Seabird's Cry won the Jeffries Prize this week! The subtitle to this stunning book is ‘The Lives and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers’, but it really ought to include ‘Deaths’, because I have never read such a moving account about the daily lives and deaths of birds. It’s the accompaniment … Continue reading Adam Nicolson, The Seabird’s Cry
This excellent book is the missing link (though obviously it hasn’t been missing at all to those who’ve known it for thirty years), between Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, and Mary Beard’s Women & Power. Published in 1983, it is a perfect blend of feminist insight and great intellectual clarity, and is a … Continue reading Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing
Inez Holden was a journalist, and a friend or a colleague of most of the literary giants of the middle of the twentieth century, as well as a former lover of George Orwell. I’ve been reading her Second World War writing, and have been thoroughly intrigued by her novel There’s No Story There (1944), which … Continue reading Inez Holden, There’s No Story There
