Reviews
The Merry Misogynist, By Colin Cotterill
Magical mystic is a cut above
Inside Reviews
Sport Book of the Week: Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary by John Daniell
Sunday, 6 December 2009
A Kiwi good enough to play for New Zealand Under-21s, John Daniell moved via a degree in English Literature at Oxford University to play top-flight rugby union in France for 11 years from 1996, selling himself to the highest bidder.
The Economics of Innocent Fraud, By John Kenneth Galbraith (Rated 4/ 5 )
Sunday, 6 December 2009
There's quite a lot of fun to be had in mapping our current economic woes on to John Kenneth Galbraith's interpretations and criticisms of capitalism, first published in 2004.
The Passport, By Herta Müller (Rated 5/ 5 )
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Herta Müller provides a masterclass here in sparse, clear prose, and conveys the bleakness of humanity, with the occasional touch of dark, bitter magic – fully earning her Nobel Prize for literature this year.
Last Steps: The Last Writings of Leo Tolstoy, trs Jay Parini (Rated 2/ 5 )
Sunday, 6 December 2009
It's either a brave man or a foolish man who describes feeling "an insuperable repulsion and tedium" on reading the plays of Shakespeare; the "vulgarity" of some characters; and the "inflated characterless style in which King Lear – like all Shakespeare's kings – talks". But by this point in his life, Tolstoy had eschewed his wilder, younger days to embrace religion and morality in his old age, and Shakespeare, he had decided, wasn't moral enough for him to appreciate. That is not to say he embraced the established Church – that gets it in the neck too, for forgetting its link to ordinary men.
A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World?, By Simon Schama (Rated 5/ 5 )
Sunday, 6 December 2009
First published to accompany his 2000 TV series of the same name, this initial volume in a trilogy about the history of Britain confirms Simon Schama's status as one of the world's leading historians, not only thanks to his expansive knowledge of history, but also to his ability to succinctly and unerringly pinpoint the psychological motivations of his characters.
The Right Hand of the Sun: A Novel, By Anita Mason (Rated 3/ 5 )
Sunday, 6 December 2009
I'm never quite sure whether that subtitle, "A Novel", is meant to function as qualifier, explanation or apology. In this case, perhaps, Anita Mason was worried we might take her historical account of Spain's bloody and brutal empire-building at the beginning of the 16th century for fact, not fiction. Certainly her extensive and detailed research of the period is to be applauded.
Killing Auntie, By Andrzej Bursa
Friday, 4 December 2009
From the admirable CB Editions comes a delightful discovery. Dead at 25 in 1957, the Polish postwar firebrand Andrzej Bursa acquired a reputation as a quick-burning, existentially tormented rebel: a literary James Dean of the Stalinist era.
News from the Empire, By Fernando del Paso
Friday, 4 December 2009
In 1861 the Mexican President, Benito Juárez, suspended payments on his country's foreign debt to Europe. This prompted France to send in the troops and an Austrian, Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg, was persuaded to become Emperor of Mexico. As Fernando del Paso demonstrates in his dramatic reconstruction of the ill-fated French intervention, the story of Maximilian is intimately entwined with the ambitions of the last French monarch, Napoleon III, and his wife Eugénie.
A Genius for Failure, By Paul O'Keeffe
Friday, 4 December 2009
The painter Benjamin Robert Haydon was an exact contemporary of Wordsworth, Keats and Lamb, and some of the most vivid recollections of their lives and their conversations are found within the pages of Haydon's Autobiography. Destiny, however, can be cruel. That Haydon should be remembered for his writings would have been an anathema to him. He regarded himself, first and foremost, as a history painter, on the grandest of grand scales, in an age when history painting was beginning to lose its importance.
Most popular in Arts & Entertainment
Read
1 The shock of the new Turner winner
3 Claire Danes: 'I have all the qualities of a nerd'
4 Jail for 'thugs' who kicked man to death new
5 100 Best Films: The final countdown, 20-1
7 Magnus Carlsen: Move fast, play young
9 Navigator / Reveal Records Mixtape giveaway new
10 Turner Prize exhibition unveiled
12 Last Night's Television - Man on Earth, Channel 4; Miranda, BBC2; Bennett on Bennett, BBC4
13 Michael Glover: You could call Wright's art minimalist, but it is also luxurious
14
15 Tom Lubbock: This year's Turner Prize foursome share common ground
Emailed
2 Face it: Portrait painting is cool again
3 Superstars of dance: The Mariinsky Ballet
4 Joss Stone: 'I just think some people are genuinely nasty characters'
6 Teacher-poet wins BBC short story award
7 Jail for 'thugs' who kicked man to death new
8 Staff Benda Bilili - The masters of survival, the sound of the ghetto
9 Navigator / Reveal Records Mixtape giveaway new
10 Sweet Charity, Menier Chocolate Factory, London
11 Evelyn Doyle: From heroics to heartache
13 Simon Price: Breast in peace, The Darkness
Commented
1Kevin Anderson: Decision time... face the facts or give up
2'We won't let sceptics hijack climate talks'
3Dominic Lawson: Roll up, roll up for the great Copenhagen emissions-fest
4Clinton offers Knox hope as 26-year jail term begins
5Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We're still the most class-ridden country under the sun
6So Mr Cameron, is it right that I will pay more tax because I haven't found Mr Right?
7Was Russian secret service behind leak of climate-change emails?
8The Big Question: Should Italian justice be in the dock over the conviction of Amanda Knox?
Independent Books Direct
| Choose from our latest reviewed book titles or use the search facility to browse our full range of UK books in print. |



