Selected Poems by Sophie Hannah
22 May 2013 15:04:02
There you go: a little token for Sophie Hannah, as a confectioner might present a cupcake to a master pâtissier. Now let's have the real thing, addressing a similar concern: "He's highbrow in a big, big way/But when he sees that I'm/The one, he'll think that it's okay/For poetry to rhyme." That's from "When a Poet Loves a Composer", and in the previous stanza she'd confessed to hiding from the beloved her notion that music should have "a tune".
And if there is room for the haunting melodies of ... Read Full Story
The Humans by Matt Haig
21 May 2013 14:23:04
Alerted to this amazing breakthrough on the other side of the universe, and convinced that the secret of primes cannot be entrusted to such a violent and backward species as humans, the super-advanced Vonnadorians dispatch an emissary to erase Martin and all traces of his discovery.
That's the backstory to a book that opens with our alien narrator finding himself in the body of the professor, whom he has just assassinated. But the instantaneous intergalactic travel hasn't turned out quite as ex... Read Full Story
Inferno written by Dan Brown
21 May 2013 14:21:46
The tall writer Steven Poole opened the wooden door of the strong house and peered at the small figure on the stone doorstep. It was a boy. Cradled in his palms the boy nervously proffered a startling object. It was the new book by the famous novelist Dan Brown.
The tall writer took the precious artefact from the nervous boy's hands and thanked him. The miniature human scuttled off. An idling engine revved into life. The writer glanced down the street, then retreated into the residential buildi... Read Full Story
The Devonshires by Roy Hattersley
21 May 2013 14:17:30
Vast country houses built for leisure and the display of status must adapt to the demands of a new age – or die. And if ever there was a house and estate that exemplified the importance of adaptation it is Chatsworth House, the Duke of Devonshire's baroque jewel in north Derbyshire. Now open to hordes of paying visitors, with shops and cafes, Chatsworth is big business, having successfully rebranded itself (to use modern terminology for old-fashioned pragmatism) as a heritage experience, a visib... Read Full Story
Edmund Burke by Jesse Norman
19 May 2013 23:45:12
Is this book about Edmund Burke or Jesse Norman? Should this review be about the "first modern conservative" or the man who might yet succeed David Cameron?
I merely ask, as the pre-publicity for this biography-cum-manifesto has focused almost entirely on the author. With good reason: Norman is one of the most eclectic and interesting MPs in the current parliament (although it is not particularly hard to stand out among the present crop).
Personable and thoughtful, he also has a cavalier strea... Read Full Story
Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception by Claudia Hammond
19 May 2013 23:41:27
But as Claudia Hammond, presenter of Radio 4's All in the Mind, argues in this lively account of our perception of time, our experiences of passing minutes differ greatly according to circumstances. "A watched pot never seems to boil, but go and check your emails and it will be boiling over before you know it."
And you know what she means: that moron moment when you realise you have locked yourself out of your hired car, with your keys inside its boot, seems to stop time in its tracks while the... Read Full Story
This House is Haunted by John Boyne
19 May 2013 23:40:04
It is 1867, London, and Charles Dickens is giving a reading near the house of 21-year-old Eliza Caine and her ailing father. As Dickens reads a ghost story to an enraptured audience, Eliza notes how he creates terror, marvelling at "how easily he could manipulate our emotions". But things fall apart: her father's health, worsened by the weather, declines. "I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father," Eliza later asserts. After his death, she becomes a governess at Gaudlin Hall in Norfolk... Read Full Story
The Pre-War House and Other Stories by Alison Moore
18 May 2013 16:58:11
The level of accomplishment on display in this bleak narrative is remarkable. Moore is not, however, a beginner. She has been publishing short stories since 2000, and that apprenticeship shaped her first novel. Now she has published a collection of her stories, and it turns out to be just as uncompromising and unsettling as The Lighthouse.
Moore's writing has no truck with the comforts of imagined redemption. One of the features that makes The Lighthouse exceptional is its steady refusal of con... Read Full Story
Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
18 May 2013 16:56:58
Good-hearted and generally polite, Sophie has a stubborn streak, refusing to accept that her mother – never officially identified – drowned when the Queen Mary sank. Not only does Sophie insist that she is still alive, she claims to know that she was a cello player in the ship's orchestra. When the NCA inform Charles that Sophie is to be removed to an orphanage, the pair go on the run, heading for Paris, to trace the cello maker whose address they have discovered inside Sophie's cello case. So b... Read Full Story
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel C Dennett
18 May 2013 16:56:00
Anyone familiar with Dennett's previous books, such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Consciousness Explained or The Intentional Stance, will have a pretty good idea what to expect from this latest – though they may well decide that they need not have bothered, as so much has been drawn from the earlier ones. Dennett's recycling credentials would do credit to the deepest of Greens.
As he explains, the origins of the present volume lie in a course he ran for 13 freshmen philosophy students. In Socrati... Read Full Story
The A303 by Tom Fort
17 May 2013 02:31:11
"We knew the landmarks that measured its progress: maybe a pub sign, a red post-box, an old, sagging stone wall weighed down by ivy … Each delivered the same message. Nearly there now."
Fort does not maintain the same tone or style for the book's remaining 340 pages; nor would he want to, when his subject matter includes various ministers of transport since the 1930s. John Prescott may still stir strong feelings, but Proustian lyricism is not one of them. It is a great start, though, winning us... Read Full Story
Clampdown by Rhian E. Jones
17 May 2013 02:27:58
The question has been regularly aired for half a decade now, and Rhian Jones sympathises with it. But in this thoughtful, short book, she argues essentially that our pop culture remains reflective of what's happening, but it has done a 180-degree flip, so that the dominant voices now mirror the values of the powerful. Good examples are the hugely successful Mumford & Sons, privately educated chancers whose banjos, beards and raggedy clothes embody a woeful kind of austerity chic, or the equally ... Read Full Story
