A new book from Giles Milton is always welcome – he is a fine writer of what might be called “narrative non-fiction” – often telling the story of forgotten episodes in history, such as in Nathaniels Nutmeg, about the battle between the Dutch and the English for control of the nutmeg trade, or Paradise Lost, [...]
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. . . written by Tom Cunliffe, of East Sussex, England (to read more about me see my About page).
It consists of book reviews and more general articles about reading and currently receives over 10,000 unique visitors each month. So far 290 book reviews have been published. My currently-reading shelf:  This website is archived for posterity in the British Library's UK Web Archive 
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Despite stealing the byline for this website from her (“he reads for his own pleasure rather than to impart knowledge or correct the opinions of others”), I am not generally a great fan of Virginia Woolf’s writings. But living where I do in East Sussex, we are surrounded by Woolf places, including only a few [...] I’ve known H G Wells’ books for many years now. When I was a child, my father had a set of his books in cheap bindings, presumably published by a book club, and I remember reading some of them throughout my childhood and youth, particularly the more “science fiction” titles like The Invisible Man or [...] My wife and I live in Bloomsbury-group country. Just last weekend we walked from Southease to Rodmell and walked past Monk’s House where Virginia Woolf ended her days (she threw herself into the River Ouse just down at end of the lane). Berwick Church is near us, where Vanessa Bell (Virginia’s sister) and Duncan Grant [...] The new illustrated edition Edmund de Waal is a renowned ceramic artist who’s work has been exhibited in Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He can trace his ancestry back to a wealthy Ukrainian family who made their fortune from grain exporting and later banking, and who had spacious and luxurious homes [...] In The Perfect Nazi, Martin Davidson joins quite a long line of authors who have written about the Nazi past of their relatives. Perhaps the best book in the genre is The Himmler Brothers, by Katrin Himmler – a difficult book to surpass in view of the noteriety of the author’s grand-uncle and grandfather. But [...] British readers may remember Vitali Vitaliev from his time as Moscow correspondent on David Frost’s 1990s television programme, Saturday Night Clive, and many broadcasts on BBC Radio 4. Vitali was born in the Ukraine, eventually defecting to the West, living in Britain and Australia, and eventually returning to London where he is a successful journalist [...] Noted novelist and translator Tim Parks has departed from his usual themes to write this autobiographical account of his journey from a life dominated by acute pain to one where a reasonable equilibrium between body and soul enables him to live in relative comfort and healthy productivity. Teach Us To Sit Still will be [...] Even since reading Stefan Zweig’s remarkable description of psychological co-dependency in his novel, Beware of Pity, I’ve tried to read every thing I can get my hands on by this fine writer. In recent years, a minor publishing industry has developed around Zweig, with Pushkin Press leading the way with quite a few volumes of [...] Like many people, I occasionally flirt with philosophy, but usually find it too abstract and inaccessible – unless of course it is set in the context of a life well-lived (or perhaps not so well!), when the personal story of the philosopher helps his teachings come alive. For this reasons, I enjoyed reading the [...] |
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