Latest FromBook Reviews
Book review: A Few Days in the Country, Elizabeth Harrower
Please add the name of Elizabeth Harrower to the embarrassingly long list of authors I should have read years ago.
Book review: Hamburgers in Paradise, Louise O. Fresco
"Tell me what you eat," said the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825, "and I'll tell you what you are."
Nine must-read history books for summer
Sinclair McKay is enthralled by superb histories that chart mankind's flirtation with global disaster.
Book review: Gilliamesque, Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam is the odd man out of the Python squad, the warm and loose American among uptight Englishmen. Yet he may be the team's secret weapon.
Book review: Public Library and other stories, Ali Smith
T.S. Eliot once wrote that the critic's job was to "exhibit the relations of literature - not to 'life', as something contrasted to literature, but to all the other activities, which, together with literature, are the components of life".
Book review: Beatlebone, Kevin Barry
Author Kevin Barry's latest novel Beatlebone delves into the mind of John Lennon as he seeks the solitude of a tiny Irish island that he bought for 1700 pounds in 1968.
Book review: Vivid - The Paul Hartigan Story
Although Paul Hartigan's art has roamed from pop-art painting and posters, to Polaroids and beyond, his neon work is the most familiar.
Book review: The Best New Writing On ... Arrival, John Freeman
John Freeman shot to international fame with his contentious 2009 book Shrinking the World: The 4000-Year Story Of How Email Came To Rule Our Lives.
Book review: Going South, Colin Hogg
There's no easy way to find out that an old mate has terminal cancer but reading a book about it has got to be one of the most moving.
Book review: Submission by Michel Houellebecq
You'll go a long way to find a more complex character than French writer Michel Houellebecq. He has attracted (and courted) controversy throughout his literary career.
Book review: Golden Age, Jane Smiley
Bill Bryson famously came from Iowa ("Somebody had to"). So do the farming dynasty of Jane Smiley's now-completed trilogy.
Book review: The Porcelain Thief, Huan Hsu
The Porcelain Thief describes Hsu's search for it, which, of course, necessitated his taking a job with a wealthy uncle in Shanghai and learning the language and customs of his ancestral home.
Book review: I'll Never Write My Memoirs, Grace Jones
It's not at all easy to talk about Grace Jones - disco queen, new waver, Bond villain, diva, android, androgyne - as if she is a real person.