News and reviews

Electric Wind reviewed in the Literary Review

Added on 09/03/2026

In 2000, renewable sources of power (of which wind is the most important) accounted for 2.8 per cent of all electricity generated in the UK. By 2024, that figure had increased eighteenfold to 50.4 per cent. This remarkable growth follows from the multiplication of wind turbines in fields or out at sea.

Holbein reviewed in the TLS

Added on 06/03/2026

Yesterday I was in Mr. Jones’s church to help get everything ready for this evening. A vicar from Leicester will be giving a lecture on the Reformation and illustrating it with a magic lantern showing scenes from that period. I’ve already seen some of the plates, they’re in the manner of Holbein.

Social Murder? featured in the Guardian

Added on 06/03/2026

My guess is you keep across the news. You know Andy Mountbatten-Windsor has just had the worst birthday ever; that tall hotels in Dubai don’t make for a great holiday right now; and that Keir Starmer’s engagements diary for 2027 will be remarkably clear.

Lying Abroad reviewed in the London Review of Books

Added on 05/03/2026

Inscribed in Latin on a large floor slab in the chapel of Eton College is a memorial to a former provost, Sir Henry Wotton, who died, aged 71, in December 1639: ‘Here lies the first author of this sentiment: The itch of disputation is the scab of the churches. Inquire his name elsewhere.’

Frida reviewed in the Art Newspaper

Added on 03/03/2026

Frida Kahlo’s face and art are recognised worldwide, but that was not always the case. “How and why did this evolution happen?” asks Mari Carmen Ramírez, the lead curator of the exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (until 17 May), in this accompanying catalogue.

The Master of Contradictions reviewed in the Morning Star

Added on 03/03/2026

This is a whole new genre – a kind of Netflix-style academic book which reads scenically yet delivers a powerful historical analysis, fully referenced.

David Crystal writes in the Literary Review

Added on 01/03/2026

Five hundred years ago, in February 1526, some six thousand copies of William Tyndale’s complete New Testament of the Bible were printed at a press in the imperial city of Worms in Germany. Today, as we celebrate the quincentennial, there are only two copies known to have survived the banning and burning of his work in England.

The Cancelled Prime Minister reviewed in History Today

Added on 01/03/2026

In August 1931 Ramsay MacDonald, Labour’s first prime minister, faced the greatest calamity of his political career. He survived it – and remained in 10 Downing Street for nearly four more years – but at a heavy cost.

Wartime Letters reviewed in the Literary Review

Added on 01/03/2026

Kathleen Harriman’s letters are particularly revealing on account of their omissions and misapprehensions. The youngest daughter of millionaire tycoon Averell Harriman, she was well schooled in diplomacy, accompanying him to London, where he served as Roosevelt’s special envoy, and to Moscow when he became US ambassador to Russia.

Archbishop, Chancellor, Kingmaker reviewed in the Literary Review

Added on 01/03/2026

Thomas Arundel was archbishop of Canterbury from 1396 until his death in 1414, and five times lord chancellor of England. He was the archetypal political bishop. He was the youngest son of the tenth earl of Arundel, one of the richest and most powerful men in England.

The Enchanting Lives of Others reviewed in the Spectator

Added on 28/02/2026

Can Xue is an oddity in the landscape of world literature. Greeted mostly with bewilderment or indifference in her native China, her novels have gained a following among a certain type of erudite western reader over the past few decades, leading to an annual flurry of Nobel speculation and more works in English translation than nearly any other living Chinese author.

Decoding the Hand reviewed in Nature

Added on 27/02/2026

In the mid-twentieth century, geneticist Lionel Penrose observed correlations between genetic abnormalities and the creases of the hand, publishing his final paper ‘Fingerprints and palmistry’ in The Lancet in 1973. The hand has long intrigued physicians, embryologists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists and physical anthropologists, notes historian Alison Bashford.