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The
Week in Review 5th October 2020
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Hermione Lee's 'masterly' and 'compelling' Tom
Stoppard biography racks up reviews
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Good morning Karen,
Hermione Lee's Tom
Stoppard: A Life (Faber & Faber) has amassed a
whopping 10 reviews this month. Critics called the biography
"masterly," "illuminating" and "a
prodigious achievement". The Observer's Kate Kellaway
said: "The biography celebrates the talent of a self-taught
man...but is, above all, about a triumph of temperament." Kate
Maltby also praised the writing in the Financial Times:
"It is this sensitivity to political and historical context that
elevates Lee’s biography above any lapses." Over in the Guardian,
Stefan Collini commented: "An astute study of the dazzlingly
clever playwright, which details the parties and famous friends,
but also identifies the emotions that drive much of his work."
Kate Summerscale's The
Haunting of Alma Fielding (Bloomsbury Circus) certainly
didn't scare off reviewers. The Guardian's Kathryn
Hughes commented that Summmerscale "has achieved the perfect
balance between her central story and its cultural context."
The Times' Ysenda Maxtone Graham agreed: "Summerscale’s
trademark skill is to home in on an obscure, true mystery story,
examine every aspect of it in detail and, by setting it in the
social context of its period, expose that period’s obsessions and
hang-ups." Finally, Lucy Lethbridge said Summerscale
"draws a convincing and compelling portrait of a moment of
mass anxiety in which so deep was the longing to believe that anything
could become believable" in the Literary Review.
Carl Hiaasen's Squeeze
Me (Sphere) made reviews great again this weekend. The Times'
James Owen gave the White House-based novel an almost perfect
review, and named it Thriller of the Month, he said:
"Heightened surrealism is de rigueur in the day-glo Florida of
Carl Hiaasen’s stories...There are enough murders, cover-ups and
serpentine twists to keep you rooting for the novel’s spirited
heroine." Janet Maslin called the novel a place for "some
wild escapism" in the New York Times, whilst John
Digdale thought that "The resulting bravura display reminds us
not only that Hiaasen is wondrously fertile in devising fizzing
plots and zany characters, but also that as a comic prose stylist
he can give Wodehouse and Waugh a run for their money" in the Sunday
Times.
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 By Tamsin Hackett, Books Co-ordinator, The
Bookseller
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Tom Stoppard: A Life
Professor Dame
Hermione Lee
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"Hermione Lee is more illuminating on the
affairs and marriages than on the plays and the risqué jokes"
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"...anyone who wants to know about Stoppard
will find most of the answers here"
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"Hermione Lee’s masterly biography of the
playwright argues that emotion is as vital to his writing as
‘mental acrobatics’"
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"An astute study of the dazzlingly clever
playwright, which details the parties and famous friends, but also
identifies the emotions that drive much of his work"
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Beethoven
Laura Tunbridge
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"... The author lets the music do the talking
in this pithy new biography"
The Observer
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"...an immensely enjoyable novel, full of
narrative verve"
Literary Review
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"...an impressive and scrupulous work of
scholarship"
The Sunday Times
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Collateral Damage
Kim Darroch
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"...he delivers sharp insights about others;
crisply critical about their decisions, while fair-minded and even
kind about them as people"
The Times
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The Book of Hopes
Katherine Rundell
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"...This book will sustain you"
The Sunday Times
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Eyes of the Rigel
Roy Jacobsen, Don Bartlett, Don Shaw
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"...In the third remarkable instalment of a
young islander’s story, questions are asked about memory, belonging
and guilt"
The Guardian
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The Meaning of Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
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"...fascinating memoir by a misunderstood
star"
The Guardian
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"...As a work of fiction, it’s spectacular; an
irresistibly unspooling mystery set in a world of original
strangeness"
The Times
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"...No Harry Hole this time, but still a sombre
delight."
The Times
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Reality and Other Stories
John Lanchester
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"...In this collection, John Lanchester gets
inside people’s heads and explore what makes us tick"
Evening Standard
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"...(an) excellent historical exposé"
The Times
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Earthlings
Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori
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"...Stark realism and absurd fantasy intersect
in this unforgettable Japanese tale"
Financial Times
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Fiction
Book of the Month
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The First Woman
Jennifer Nansubuga
Makumbi
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The First Woman opens
in the small village of Nattetta, Uganda, in 1975, where
12-year-old Kirabo Nnamiiro is being brought up by her doting
paternal grandparents. Up until now, Kirabo has been perfectly
content with her life at the heart of a prosperous, extended
family, but now, on the verge of her teenage years, she is starting
to feel the absence of her mother, a woman she cannot remember.
The novel unfolds over eight years, from 1975 to
1983, under the regime of Idi Amin, and the violence of those years
is subtly present in the background.
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"...as a comic prose stylist he can give
Wodehouse and Waugh a run for their money"
The Sunday Times
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"...tackling racism with disarming
honesty"
The Daily Telegraph
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Mantel Pieces
Hilary Mantel
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"...Hilary Mantel's literary reviews
demonstrate her snarky wit, while her memoir segments are without
parallel"
The Daily Telegraph
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The SS Officer's Armchair
Daniel Lee
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"...Lee’s riveting book opens a window onto the
life of an “ordinary” Nazi and the depredations attendant on his
desk job"
Evening Standard
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Stephen Hawking
Leonard Mlodinow
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"...This brief book somehow manages to be both
a personal and intellectual biography of its subject – and
tremendously entertaining with it"
The Sunday Telegraph
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Agent Sonya
Ben Macintyre
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"...When Ben Macintyre’s name is on the cover
you know you are in for a thrilling ride"
Evening Standard
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"...Robinson’s timeless prose, her Romeo and
Juliet story, have an eerily timely ring"
Financial Times
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Diary of an MP's Wife
Sasha Swire
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"...This waspish insider account of the past
decade in politics is also profoundly depressing – for what it says
about the people who govern us"
The Daily Telegraph
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"...(an) all-you-can-eat Amis buffet. Dig
in"
The Times
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Death in Her Hands
Ottessa Moshfegh
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"...“Death in Her Hands” is the work of writer
who is, like Henry James or Vladimir Nabokov, touched by both
genius and cruelty"
The New Yorker
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Tom Stoppard: A Life
Professor Dame Hermione Lee
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"...Hermione Lee is more illuminating on the
affairs and marriages than on the plays and the risqué jokes"
The Spectator
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Just Like You
Nick Hornby
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"...t may not have fire in its belly, but it has
great warmth in its heart."
The Observer
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The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame 1968 - 2011
William Feaver
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"...Feaver’s vastly detailed biography is the
ideal companion to Freud’s work"
The Guardian
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Diary of an MP's Wife
Sasha Swire
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"...This waspish insider account of the past
decade in politics is also profoundly depressing – for what it says
about the people who govern us"
The Daily Telegraph
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"...As a work of fiction, it’s spectacular; an
irresistibly unspooling mystery set in a world of original
strangeness"
The Times
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Head Hand Heart
David Goodhart
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"...This brilliant sequel to ‘The Road to Somewhere’
asks us to value hands and hearts, not just university
degrees"
The Daily Telegraph
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Online
Book Events from BookGig
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CLC 2020: Raynor
Winn on The Wild Silence
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Tuesday 6th
October, 2020 @ 7:00 pm
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Kate Summerscale in
conversation
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Thursday 8th
October, 2020 @ 7:30 pm
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Carolyn Kirby:
Women With Wings
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Thursday 8th
October, 2020 @ 8:00 pm
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Stephanie Kelton -
Festival of Ideas Online
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Monday 12th
October, 2020 @ 6:00 pm
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© 2020 Bookseller Media Ltd.
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