A Common Reader is . . .

. . . 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 288 book reviews have been published.


My currently-reading shelf:
Tom Cunliffe's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book trivia, book lists (currently-reading shelf)


This website is archived for posterity in the British Library's UK Web Archive

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Review: Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War – Giles Milton

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, [...]

Review: The Possessed – Elif Batuman

Elif Batuman’s book of essays, The Possessed, loosely based on the joys of reading classic Russian literature, turns out to be a bit of a hodge-podge of travel-writing, literary criticism and a personal reading history, enlivened by a butterfly mind that flutters from one subject to another without really landing for too long on any [...]

Review: Olivia Laing – To the River

To the River is an unusual book, combining local and literary history, a walking journal, meditations on the topic of rivers and water, and a hefty amount of biographical material about Virginia Woolf.  The author, Olivia Laing, walked the Ouse Path during a time of great personal sadness, soon after she had broken up with [...]

Review: The Address Book – Tim Radford

Like many school children of my era, when writing my name and address in a book I would extend the address to include cosmic information such as,

. . .  Great Britain Europe Earth Outer Space The Universe

In his book,  The Address Book, Tim Radford has taken that concept and written a set of [...]

More about Jan Karski (part 2)

Jan Karski Statue in Tel Aviv University

On 3 May, I published a review of Jan Karski’s book, Story of a Secret State – a memoir of the authors services to the Polish resistance in World War II.  I was pleased to receive a personal memoir from Dawn M who knew Jan Karski before [...]

More about Jan Karski (part 1)

In a review last week I featured a Jan Karski’s book, Story of a Secret State.   As I read the book, I knew I was reading something quite unique.  I was delighted to receive a comment on the post from Dawn M who had met Karski and has some personal reminiscences of him.  Her comment [...]

Review: Story of a Secret State – Jan Karski

Note – since publishing this review, I have been sent some interesting personal reminiscences of Jan Karski which I have published in two parts here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

I have recently been engrossed in a first person account of the Polish resistance movement in World War II Story of a Secret [...]

Review: The Hare with Amber Eyes – Edmund de Waal

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 [...]

Review: The Perfect Nazi – Martin Davidson

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 [...]

Review: Bomber County – Daniel Swift

In Bomber County Daniel Swift describes how he started to research the life of his grandfather (also Daniel Swift) who was lost at sea when his the Lancaster bomber he was flying was shot down over Holland.  His researches, which included visits to military graves and other memorable sites in western Europe, led him to [...]