In Search of J. D. Salinger Ian Hamilton
Published in the Guardian in February was Christopher Tayler's feature announcing the return to print in April of Ian Hamilton's In Search of J. D. Salinger in Faber Finds. He sheds light too on the barriers Hamilton faced on trying to put down in print the details of the reclusive American author's life. More
Featured Book: Death of the Dark Hero
Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and Cabinet Minister Pavel Bratinka here pays tribute to David Selbourne's Death of the Dark Hero, his record of the extraordinary events that reshaped Europe at the end of the 1980s - an era of regime change and new liberation. More
Featured Author: Joyce Cary
Doris Lessing, John Updike, Paul Theroux ... All fans of the prolific, if hard to categorize, Joyce Cary. Brian Glanville sums him up well: 'Joyce Cary's sheer versatility is breathtaking. He writes with equal insight and narrative brilliance about life as varied as that in Nigeria, rural Ireland and Bohemian London'. More
Spotted Recently ...: Back to the Local
Spotted in early 2010 was this letter from CAMRA Pub Heritage Group member and author Geoff Brandwood about the merits of Maurice Gorham's Back to the Local, his memorable literary crawl around British pubs in the 1940s. Brandwood knows his pubs! More
The Circle: A Lost Booker Contender
An exploration of the loneliness of marriage, Elaine Feinstein's 1970 novel The Circle was acclaimed on publication and now, 40 years later, is a contender for the Lost Booker Prize. To coincide, as the book is reintroduced to a new audience, the author provides a little background. More
The Simple Life: Fiona MacCarthy
'The story of C. R. Ashbee's exodus from London in search of an idyllic way of working in the countryside became the subject of my first book, The Simple Life.' Acclaimed biographer Fiona MacCarthy describes an intriguing experiment in utopian social engineering. More
Most Popular Books:
- 1 Lionel Davidson Kolymsky Heights
- 2 Roy Horniman Israel Rank
- 3 Keith Douglas Alamein to Zem Zem
- 4 P. H. Newby Something to Answer For
- 5 John Carey John Donne