Book Reviews

 The Pornographer of Vienna Lewis Crofts
Last edited on: 04/02/2012 - 12:20

Lewis Crofts' fictionalised narrative biography of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele provides a detailed account of the life of the tortured painter, misunderstood for large parts of his life, yet ultimately successful only to succumb to Spanish Flu at an early age. The soubriquet The Pornographer of Vienna was attached to Schiele by a Viennese judge during an obscenity trial since many of his works, provocative and clearly showing female genitals, outraged society and caused Schiele to be incarcerated.

 »   Read more
11.22.63 Stephen King
Last edited on: 15/01/2012 - 11:13

Being the dreadful literary snob that I am, I have never felt moved to read any of populist author's Stephen King's work. When I saw a synopsis for his most recent publication, 11.22.63, I realised it was high time to bury that irrational prejudice. However, the book is daunting – a very hefty 730 pages - which needs to be factored into the decision-making process. I only have time to read during my daily commute which of course meant I would be lugging around the tome for a protracted period of time.

»   Read more
The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern
Last edited on: 03/12/2011 - 11:38

Erin Morgenstern's debut novel "The Night Circus" has been somewhat unfairly called the natural successor to the Harry Potter series of books. There will certainly be some overlap of the target readership, but with a fleeting sex scene (more of this later) Morgenstern has deliberately narrowed the demographic so it is unlikely it could be considered ideal toddler bedtime reading.

»   Read more
The Map and the Territory Michel Houellebecq
Last edited on: 15/10/2011 - 09:05

Michel Houellebecq is the enfant terrible of French fiction despite this sounding vaguely ridiculous for a man firmly entrenched in his fifth decade. His award-winning and hard-hitting novels tend to polarise opinion; there are familiar themes that span his oeurve - graphic sex and prostitution, ageing, genetics and cryogenics, tourism and consumerism.

»   Read more
The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex Mark Kermode
Last edited on: 01/10/2011 - 09:35

Ask the general public to name a film critic and they would struggle. If they did however manage to dredge one name from the recesses of their collective minds, it would undoubtedly be Mark Kermode. Kermode and Simon Mayo review the latest UK movie releases on a weekly BBC Radio 1 show. Kermode browbeats the submissive and unsure Mayo, and his hectoring rhetoric leaves the listeners in no doubt as to his opinions, opinions which are usually told as irrefutable facts.

»   Read more
The Damnation of John Donellan: A mysterious case of death and scandal in Georgian England Elizabeth Cooke
Last edited on: 25/09/2011 - 22:23

The flavour of the month in literary circles is the publication of books raking over the evidence of long forgotten murder cases, often hundreds of years in the past. Having enjoyed Mr Brigg's Hat from the Victorian age, I felt a return trip to the genre, a foray further into the dim and distant past, was in order with Elizabeth Cooke's The Damnation of John Donellan.

 »   Read more
The Life and Times of Moll Flanders Sian Rees
Last edited on: 04/09/2011 - 19:47

Over the years Daniel Defoe's creation Moll Flanders has had bad press. Film and television adaptations have sensationalised and romanticised her exploits. The BBC's 1995 version starring Alex Kingston had Moll as an amoral prostitute with heaving bosoms and lesbian tendencies. Such broadcasts have skewed the public's perception. Whilst Moll may be imbued in the public's psyche, very few will have picked up the book and actually read it and formed their own judgement.

 »   Read more
Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars Sonia Faleiro
Last edited on: 31/08/2011 - 20:47

The brothels of Bombay are frequently depicted in the photojournalism features of The Sunday Times Magazine and other lifestyle colour supplements. These pictures paint a vivid picture of the abject poverty and depravity of the sex workers' lives, yet they fail to tell the entire story and in reality such scenes merely scrape the surface of an industry of jaw-dropping dimensions. Sonia Faleiro's Beautiful Things – Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars explains the hierarchy of these workers.

 »   Read more
Sex on the Moon Ben Mezrich
Last edited on: 21/08/2011 - 08:59

Thad Roberts will go down in history as the NASA intern who threw away the prospects of a glittering career potentially leading to becoming an astronaut when he stole 100 grams of moon rock from his employers. Roberts was a straight-A student from Utah of Mormon upbringing, talented yet lacking direction and living in the shadows of his elder siblings. He harboured a dream of becoming a placement student at NASA, yet despite his scholastic endeavours he had neither the vocational nor the interpersonal skills to make the grade.

 »   Read more
Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down: How One Generation of British Actors Changed the World Robert Sellers
Last edited on: 07/08/2011 - 12:04

The late fifties and the early sixties heralded a seismic change in society; the country was coming out of the post war austerity years of rationing and 'making do', the advent of rock and roll music was hitting our shores and empowering the country's youth hitherto overlooked and marginalised. At the same time a new brigade of writers, tired of the upper-middle class french-windows and tennis club plays written by the likes of Terence Rattigan and Noel Coward, were exploring working class issues and relationship politics.

»   Read more

Useful links

Sitemap
Credits