Ruth Scurr
In Ways of Life (Jonathan Cape, £30), Laura Freeman channels the spirit of the art critic and collector Jim Ede. She traces the origins of Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge – not a museum, nor art gallery, more a cabinet of curiosities – through Ede’s own life, his work for the Tate, the other houses and countries he lived in and the artists he cared for and wrote about.
In Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations (Simon & Schuster, £30), Simon Schama argues that ‘all history is natural history’, and introduces a rich cast of protagonists who pushed forward the frontiers of science for the good of humanity, regardless of national, territorial boundaries. ‘There are no foreigners, only familiars,’ Schama asserts: a powerful message for our troubled times.
Peter Parker
Why is it that women write such good novels about the two world wars? If Alice Winn isn’t yet quite in the league of Olivia Manning, Susan Hill, Shirley Hazzard, Jennifer Johnston and Pat Barker, her In Memoriam (Viking, £14.99)
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