CONTENTS

THIS MONTH’S PULPIT is written by Henry Hitchings. His latest book is The Language Wars: A History o f Proper English (John Murray).

RACHEL POLONSKY is the author of Molotov’s Magic Lantern: A Journey in Russian History (Faber & Faber).

RICHARD HOLLOWAY’s most recent book is Between the Monster and the Saint (Canongate).

JAKE ADELSTEIN i s the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Constable).

MICHAEL BURLEIGH’s Moral Combat: A History of World War II is available in paperback from HarperPress.

ANNE SEBBA is the author of Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother (John Murray). That Woman: A Life of Wallis Simpson will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in August.

PAUL CARTLEDGE i s t he A G Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, Cambridge University, and t he author of Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past.

CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY i s an award-winning journalist and author. He is still waiting for his broadcasting, blues guitar and cultural troublemaking to achieve similar recognition.

PETER MARSHALL i s Professor of History at the University of Warwick.

DONALD SASSOON is the author of The Culture of the Europeans (2006) and Professor o f Comparative European History at Queen Mary University of London.

JONATHAN BECKMAN has just won a 2010 RSL/Jerwood Award f o r Non-Fiction.

LITERARY REVIEW April 2011

PULPIT

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HENRY HITCHINGS

BIOGRAPHY

THAT’S LIFE

HISTORY

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MALISE RUTHVEN Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism John Calvert MICHAEL BURLEIGH Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller JANE RIDLEY Behind Closed Doors: The Tragic, Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor Hugo Vickers ANNE SEBBA The Churchills: A Family at the Heart of History – From the Duke of Marlborough to Winston Churchill Mary S Lovell PETER MARSHALL Sir Walter Raleigh: In Life and Legend Mark Nicholls & Penry Williams MICHAEL FATHERS Captain Cook: Master of the Seas Frank McLynn STEPHEN AMIDON His Father’s Son: Earl and Tiger Woods Tom Callahan

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RICHARD HOLLOWAY Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty Simon Baron-Cohen JOHN GRAY Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to Be Happy Pascal Bruckner ANTHONY DANIELS ON FIVE BOOKS ABOUT GROWING OLD

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RICHARD HOLMES Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War David Edgerton DONALD SASSOON Streetlife: The Untold History of Europe’s Twentieth Century Leif Jerram PAUL JOHNSON Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean Alex Von Tunzelmann PAUL CARTLEDGE Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great’s Empire Robin Waterfield JONATHAN BECKMAN Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe Ulinka Rublack

MEMOIRS

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RACHEL POLONSKY The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them Elif Batuman MICK BROWN Memoirs of a Dervish Robert Irwin JANE THYNNE Animal Magic Andrew Barrow Problem Child Caradoc King Henry’s Demons Patrick Cockburn and Henry Cockburn Mennonite in a Little Black Dress Rhoda Janzen

BACK TO THE USSR

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OLEG GORDIEVSKY Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–89 Rodric Braithwaite NORMAN STONE Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall Jonathan Haslam

Editor: NANCY SLADEK Deputy Editor: TOM FLEMING Editor-at-Large: JEREMY LEWIS Assistant Editor: JONATHAN BECKMAN Editorial Assistant: ALEXANDER BLASDEL Contributing Editors: MICHAEL BURLEIGH,

SARA WHEELER, PHILIP WOMACK Advertising Manager: TERRY FINNEGAN Classified Advertising: DAVID STURGE

Founding Editor: DR ANNE SMITH Founding Father: AUBERON WAUGH

Cover illustration by Chris Riddell

Issue no. 386

2 APRIL 2011

INTERVIEW

HOME & ABROAD

LITERARY LIVES

GENERAL

FICTION

CRIME POETRY SILENCED VOICES LR CLASSIFIEDS LR BOOKSHOP LR CROSSWORD

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DONALD RAYFIELD The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin Stephen F Cohen

PATRICK MARNHAM TALKS TO V S NAIPAUL

JAKE ADELSTEIN People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman Richard Lloyd Parry ADRIAN TINNISWOOD London Under Peter Ackroyd The Stones of London Leo Hollis THOMAS MARKS Edgelands: J ourneys i nto England’s True Wilderness Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts ROBERT CHESSHYRE Access all Areas Sara Wheeler

PETER WASHINGTON G K Chesterton: A Biography Ian Ker JESSIE CHILDS Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt – Courtier, Poet, Assassin, Spy Nicola Shulman

ANNABELLE SREBERNY The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World Evgeny Morozov DAVID PROFUMO Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything Joshua Foer DANIEL SNOWMAN The Bauhaus Group Nicholas Fox Weber LEO ROBSON The Faber Book of French Cinema Charles Drazin CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY 33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs Dorian Lynskey MICHAEL BYWATER Reality is Broken Jane McGonigal

KEITH MILLER The Pale King David Foster Wallace MICHAEL SHERBORNE A Man of Parts David Lodge JONATHAN BARNES ON FIVE DEBUT NOVELS ANTHONY CUMMINS The Free World David Bezmozgis DAVID ANNAND Spring David Szalay JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan JAKE KERRIDGE The Devil’s Garden Edward Docx LINDEN BURLEIGH Last Dance with Valentino Daisy Waugh

JESSICA MANN

LUCY POPESCU

JOHN GRAY’s most recent book, The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death, is published by Allen Lane.

RICHARD HOLMES is Professor of Military and Security Studies a t Cranfield University.

JANE RIDLEY’s biography of Edward VII will be published by Chatto & Windus next year.

OLEG GORDIEVSKY spent eleven years as a British secret agent inside the KGB. He was exposed in 1985 and placed under house arrest in Moscow, facing an imminent death sentence. However, with the a s s i s t ance of British Intelligence, he escaped to London. He survives, somewhere in England, to tell the tale, and has written four books, three of them in partnership with Christopher Andrew.

MALISE RUTHVEN is the author of Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning and A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America, among other books. A book of his essays, Encounters with Islam, will be published next year.

JANE THYNNE’s latest novel, The Weighing of the Heart. is published by Byline Books.

PATRICK MARNHAM i s writing a book about t he Democratic Republic of the Congo.

PETER WASHINGTON was editor of the Everyman Library from 1989 to 2009.

JESSIE CHILDS’s Henry VIII’s Last Victim is available in paperback from Vintage.

NORMAN STONE i s Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University in Turkey. His most recent book is Turkey: A Short History published by Thames & Hudson.

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LITERARY REVIEW April 2011