Love Stories, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell In Bed With: Unashamedly Sexy Stories by Your Favourite Women Novelists, edited by Imogen Edwards-Jones, Jessica Adams, Kathy Lette and Maggie Alderson When Kurt Vonnegut was interviewed by the Paris Review in 1977, he was asked: ‘Let’s talk about the women in your books.’ ‘There aren’t any,’ he
Wetlands, by Charlotte Roche What an odd mix of distinguished residents High Wycombe has had! Fern Britton, Benjamin Disraeli, Dusty Springfield, Karl Popper, Jimmy Carr: it’s a list that reads like a game of Celebrity Consequences in freefall. There is not much in common between those listed above. Yet a subsection of the list displays
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behaviour, by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman Sway is a slim, stylish book that is self-consciously part of a trend. Like Blink and Freakonomics, it looks at the science of decision-making, taking obscure academic studies and applying them to everyday life. It shares with those books the breezy, anecdotal
When I wrote a regular column on Africa for this magazine’s left-wing rival, I was always intrigued by the contrast in responses to any sceptical article on aid. ‘This reactionary bigot is clearly happy for millions of Africans to starve,’ pretty much summed up the fury of white readers at having their Oxfam direct debits
The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000, by Chris Wickham This outstanding book covers what used to be called the ‘dark ages’. Publishers rarely speak of the dark ages now. It does not sell copies. But the title still encapsulates the conventional view of the period: a civilised empire destroyed
The Rescue Man, by Anthony Quinn The Other Side of the Stars, by Clemency Burton-Hill When journalists venture into no man’s land and begin writing fiction, they do so in the knowledge that it could all get a bit messy. It’s not long before the sound of grinding axes start up. So it’s a pleasant
