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MEMOIR Finding Joy by Gary Andrews (John Murray £16.99, 192pp) ‘Grief,’ wrote C. S. Lewis, ‘is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.’ After his wife — poet Joy Davidman — died aged just 45 in 1960, the Chronicles Of Narnia author was compelled to document … Read more
POLITICS EAT THE BUDDHA by Barbara Demick (Granta, £18.99, 272pp) The very word ‘Tibet’ has romantic, resonance. The ‘Roof of the World’ conjures the vast snowy wastes of the High Himalayan plateau, populated by yaks, nomadic herders, yetis and Buddhist lamas in russet robes, capable of levitation and clairvoyance. Alas, there is a very different … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK AGENT SONYA by Ben Macintyre (Viking £25, 416 pp) Her scones were the envy of the Oxfordshire hamlet of Great Rollright, where the friendly woman known as Mrs Burton lived in a stone farmhouse. In her late 30s, she moved there with her three children and husband Len just after the … Read more
SOCIETY OLD HOMES, NEW LIFE by Clive Aslet (Triglyph £50, 304 pp) What made audiences all over the world fall in love with Downton Abbey? Perhaps it was Lady Mary’s exquisite frocks, the Dowager Countess’s waspish put-downs, or the slow-burn romance between Carson and Mrs Hughes. But for many of us the real star was … Read more
PICTURE THIS By Ciara Dossett For The Daily Mail Published: 22:11 BST, 3 September 2020 | Updated: 22:11 BST, 3 September 2020 THE ROSE IN FASHION by Amy de la Haye (Yale University Press £30) Pictured is Yves Saint Laurent with Laetitia Casta at his 1999 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear show The rose and fashion are inextricably … Read more
FAMILY House of music by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason (Oneworld £18.00, 320 pp) When Dr Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason opens the bathroom door at her family home in Nottingham, she smiles at the pockmarked linoleum which gives the impression ‘a lively woodpecker has been at work’. The line of dents leads to the toilet seat where her third child, … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour (Weidenfeld £15.99, 288 pp) Featherhood, it would be tempting to say, is where Helen Macdonald’s H Is For Hawk meets Gerald Durrell’s My Family And Other Animals. But Charlie Gilmour’s memoir is so original and ingeniously wrought, it stands on its own as a book to which … Read more
MEMOIR NOT THE TYPE by Camilla Thurlow (John Blake £16.99, 288 pp) Camilla Thurlow was not exactly your average Love Island contestant when she appeared on the reality dating show in 2017. She was not, like many islanders, a personal trainer, sexy scaffolder or nebulous influencer. Thurlow’s job was far more dangerous: explosive ordinance disposal … Read more
MEMOIR NOT THE TYPE by Camilla Thurlow (John Blake £16.99, 288 pp) Camilla Thurlow was not exactly your average Love Island contestant when she appeared on the reality dating show in 2017. She was not, like many islanders, a personal trainer, sexy scaffolder or nebulous influencer. Thurlow’s job was far more dangerous: explosive ordinance disposal … Read more
SOCIETY Sealand by Dylan Taylor-Lehman (Icon £16.99, 320 pp) Sealand, ‘the true story of the world’s most stubborn micronation’ — a micronation being defined as ‘an invented country within the territory of an established nation, whose boundaries go unrecognised on the world stage’ — is a celebration of British eccentricity. The hero is Roy Bates, … Read more