News and reviews
Songs of Seven Dials reviewed in the Observer
Added on 06/12/2025
In the middle of Seven Dials, an area of Covent Garden that can be crossed on foot in a matter of minutes, is a thin, elegant stone pillar. I’ve walked past it countless times, assuming it must be as old as this part of London, laid out by Thomas Neale MP in the early 1690s.
READ MOREHolbein reviewed in the Church Times
Added on 05/12/2025
The German artist Hans Holbein first came to England in 1526, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art has published this authoritative and richly illustrated volume in preparation for that anniversary.
Katherine Mansfield – A Guardian Best Biography of 2025
Added on 04/12/2025
Not all memoirists are keen to share their life stories. For Margaret Atwood, an author who has sold more than 40m books, the idea of writing about herself seemed “Dead boring. Who wants to read about someone sitting at a desk messing up blank sheets of paper?”
READ MOREThe Strand reviewed in the LRB
Added on 04/12/2025
After reading Geoff Browell and Eileen Chanin’s concise history of the Strand, you will never walk down that street again without thinking of the hippopotami that wallowed in a primeval swamp at the Trafalgar Square end.
READ MORERigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring reviewed in the Spectator
Added on 03/12/2025
In 1755, Samuel Johnson (this was before his honorary doctorates) defined the herring as ‘a small sea-fish’, and that was it. By contrast, Graeme Rigby has spent 25 obsessive years documenting the cultural and economic importance of this creature.
READ MOREPhotographing a Modern World featured in the Daily Mail
Added on 03/12/2025
Unseen pictures that’ll change the way you see the past: These rare photos from the Mail’s archive show 20th century Britain at its vibrant, scandalous and joyful best – from show girls to ‘biker gangs’
READ MOREDecoding the Hand reviewed in the Literary Review
Added on 01/12/2025
A lot of what, and who, we think we are as individuals and social beings is concentrated in our hands. When teaching the rhetorical trope of synecdoche to undergraduates, I always use the expression ‘give me a hand’ to illustrate the difference between figurative language and simple truth-telling.
READ MOREThe Complete Notebooks reviewed in the Literary Review
Added on 01/12/2025
How can we live in a meaningless world? Is there any hope of happiness, when our existence is fundamentally absurd and we must succumb to ‘revolting death’? Should we even bother with life, or just abandon the quest?
READ MOREJean-Paul Marat reviewed in the Literary Review
Added on 01/12/2025
Jean-Paul Marat lives in cultural memory as a beautiful corpse, immortalised by Jacques-Louis David, who has him clutching a note pleading for the aid of ‘The People’s Friend’ (the note was in fact a treacherous assassin’s lure).
READ MOREThe Modern British City 1945-2000 reviewed in the Literary Review
Added on 01/12/2025
On 16 May 1968, Ivy Hodge got up to make an early morning cuppa. She lived alone at flat 90 on the eighteenth floor of Ronan Point, a brand-new tower block built for Newham Council at Canning Town in the east London Docklands.
READ MOREUp in the Air reviewed in the Literary Review
Added on 01/12/2025
On 16 May 1968, Ivy Hodge got up to make an early morning cuppa. She lived alone at flat 90 on the eighteenth floor of Ronan Point, a brand-new tower block built for Newham Council at Canning Town in the east London Docklands.
READ MOREJohn Vanbrugh reviewed in the Literary Review
Added on 01/12/2025
Before he ever thought of designing a building, Sir John Vanbrugh was a successful playwright – a man of the theatre through and through. He personifies Restoration drama. His plays are racy, subversive, witty, fast and furious.
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