Gabriel Josipovici's '100 Days'
Gabriel Josipovici’s 100 Days is an account both of the first three months of the pandemic, and of the author’s deep engagement with culture during his long life.
Read MoreGabriel Josipovici’s 100 Days is an account both of the first three months of the pandemic, and of the author’s deep engagement with culture during his long life.
Read MoreDonna Leon, at the age, has written a ‘memoir’ in the form of 30 vignettes about her life and cultural interests.
Read MoreMy Books of 2023.
Read MoreA reflection on reading eclectically, and on how books connect to each other in surprising and fruitful ways.
Read MoreMartin Doyle’s Dirty Linen: the Troubles in my Home Place is a powerful mixture of memoir, journalism and history. In it, the lives of people murdered in a single parish during the Troubles are given due attention.
Read MoreRos Atkins’s The Art of Explanation: how to communicate with clarity and confidence is a fascinating fine-grained account of how he has reached the status of one of broadcasting’s most impressive ‘explainers’.
Read MoreA round-up of short reviews from the Fortnightly newsletter, from January to June 2023.
Read MoreElizabeth Boyle’s account of 2020 is a startling mixture of personal, cultural and literary history.
Read MoreMy Father’s House, Joseph O’Connor’s fictional treatment of the life of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, is particularly brilliant in its evocation of Rome and the Vatican under Nazi occupation.
Read MorePatrick Freyne’s collection of personal essays, OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea is a skilful, funny and often moving collection of stories.
Read MoreNeil Sentance has written two marvellous short collections, imagining the lives of his family over many decades on the border of Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
Read MoreAcross the three terrific books which make up her ‘living autobiography’, Deborah Levy opens up to us the mind of a writer with honesty, sharp humour and enormous skill.
Read MoreNicholas Royle’s White Spines: confessions of a book collector is his account of his obsessive collection of Picador books over many years, and it’s funny, self-aware and self-deprecating - a delight for those of us who love the physicality of books.
Read MoreMeriel Schindler’s The Lost Café Schindler: one family, two wars and the search for truth is an absorbing account of the ways the fortunes of a Jewish family in Austria ebbed and flowed through history.
Read MoreChimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s latest (very short) book recounts how her father’s death in 2020 hit it brutally, in ways she was unprepared for.
Read MoreMusa Okwonga’s One of Them: an Eton College memoir is a highly pleasurable and beautifully written personal reflection.
Read MoreScholastique Mukasonga’s début novel, now re-released by Daunt Books, is a startling and surprising approach to the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Read MoreAdam Rutherford’s How to Argue with a Racist has a morally important purpose. It is also a brilliant example of how to write about complex ideas in an accessible way.
Read MoreThomas Newkirk is one of the best writers on education today. His book Minds Made for Stories examines the ways non-fiction texts have narratives at their cores, and how these can be used to teach them.
Read MoreJonathan Smith’s enormously enjoyable Being Betjeman(n) is an unclassifiable and highly personal book about the poet, but also about mental health, teaching, parenting and friendship.
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