T HIS MONTH ’ S PULPIT is written by D J Taylor, a novelist and biographer. His new novel, Ask Alice, will be published by Chatto & Windus in April.

S IMON S EBAG M ONTEFIORE is the author of the novel Sashenka. His recent history book Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Prize, the LA Times Book Prize for Biography and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Political Literature.

J OHN G RAY ’s most recent book is Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (Penguin).

R OY S TRONG , writer and historian, is the author of The Renaissance Garden in England.

U RSULA K L E G UIN ’s latest novel, Lavinia, will be published in the UK in June.

E LAINE S HOWALTER is Avalon Foundation Professor Emerita at Princeton University.

A NDREW R OBERTS ’s most recent book, Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West, is published by Penguin.

J OHN G RIBBIN is the author of Science: A History(Penguin).

A NN W ROE is the author of Perkin: A Story of Deception. Her latest book, Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself, is published by Vintage.

C AROLA H ICKS is the author of The Bayeux Tapestry: Life Story of a Masterpiece. Her latest book, The King’s Glass, is published byChatto & Windus.

G ILLIAN T INDALL ’s books include Celestine, Voices from a French Village (Vintage) and The Journey of Martin Nadaud(Pimlico).

J USTIN M AROZZI ’s most recent book is The Man who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus(John Murray).

CONTENTS

PULPIT

BIOGRAPHY

HISTORY

DIARIES & LETTERS

FOREIGN PARTS

LITERARY LIVES

GARDENS

11

DJ T AYLOR

66

88

1100

1111

1122

A NDREW R OBERTS Archibald Wavell: The Life and Times of an Imperial Servant Adrian Fort J OHN G RIBBIN The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac Quantum Genius Graham Farmelo A LLISTER H EATH The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life Alice Schroeder F RANCES W ILSON Doctor of Love: James Graham and His Celestial Bed Lydia Syson G ILLIAN T INDALL Germaine de Staël & Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography Renee Winegarten

1144

1155

1177

1188

S IMON S EBAG M ONTEFIORE History’s Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks Sean McMeekin R ICHARD O VERY Haunted City: Nuremberg and the Nazi Past Neil Gregor C AROLA H ICKS The Battle of Hastings: The Fall of Anglo-Saxon England Harriet Harvey-Wood L ESLIE M ITCHELL Making History Now and Then: Discoveries, Controversies and Explorations David Cannadine

2200 2211 2222

2244

D OMINIC S ANDBROOK Journals 1952–2000 Arthur M Schlesinger Jr E LAINE S HOWALTER Reborn: Early Diaries 1947–1964 Susan Sontag B RENDA M ADDOX Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell (Ed) Thomas Travisano D IANA A THILL Coda Simon Gray

2255 2266 2277

2299

M ICHAEL B URLEIGH Inside Egypt John RBradley J USTIN M AROZZI The Weight of a Mustard Seed Wendell Steavenson H AZHIR T EIMOURIAN Prophets and Princes: Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present Mark Weston O LEG G ORDIEVSKY Putin and the Rise of Russia Michael Stuermer

3300 3322 3333

3355

3366

A LLAN M ASSIE The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography Robert Crawford P AUL J OHNSON Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy William Oddie C OLIN B URROW John Milton: Life, Work & Thought Gordon Campbell & Thomas N Corns F RANCIS K ING Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love Sheila Rowbotham J OHN D UGDALE Arthur Miller: The Definitive Biography Christopher Bigsby

3388 3399 4400

R OY S TRONG Elizabeth in the Garden Trea Martyn C HARLES E LLIOTT The Morville Hours Katherine Swift T IM R ICHARDSON A Genius for Place Robin Karson

Editor:N ANCY S LADEK Deputy Editor: T OM F LEMING Editor-at-Large: J EREMY L EWIS Editorial Assistant: J ONATHAN B ECKMAN

Contributing Editors: S EBASTIAN S HAKESPEARE , P HILIP W OMACK Advertising Manager: T ERRY F INNEGAN Classified Advertising: D AVID S TURGE Founding Editor:D R A NNE S MITH Founding Father: A UBERON W AUGH Cover illustration by Chris Riddell Issue no. 361

LITERARY REVIEW Dec 08 / Jan 09

4 EXHIBITION

KINGS & QUEENS

SOUND & SILENCE

GENERAL

WILD LIFE

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

BAD SEX REPORT

FICTION

CRIME

SILENCED VOICES

POETRY COMPETITION

LETTERS

4422

4433

4455

4466

4499

5500 5511

5522

5544

5555

5566 5577 5588

5599

6600 6611

6633

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6666 6677 6688 6688 6699 7700 7711 7722 7722

7766 7744 7788 7733

DECEMBER 2008 / JANUARY 2009

T OM H OLLAND Babylon: Myth and Reality

A NNE S OMERSET The Sisters Who Would be Queen: The Tragedy of Katherine, Mary and Lady Jane GreyLeanda de Lisle A NNE W ROE The Man Who Believed He Was King of France: A True Medieval Tale Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri V IRGINIA R OUNDINGON R OYAL L ADIES

A LEXANDER W AUGH The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and their Audiences, 1700 to the Present Tim Blanning P ATRICK O’C ONNOR Hallelujah Junction John Adams U RSULA K L E G UIN A Book of Silence Sara Maitland

J OHN G RAY The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness Mark Rowlands R AYMOND S EITZ Tippecanoe and Tyler Too: Famous Slogans and Catchphrases in American History Jan R van Meter A LLAN M ALLINSON Admirals: The Naval Commanders who Made Britain Great Andrew Lambert S IMON H EFFER The Hugo Young Papers (Ed) Ion Trewin C HRISTOPHER H ART Sex, Drugs and Chocolate Paul Martin A NDREW B ARROW The Art of Conversation Catherine Blyth

J ONATHAN M IRSKY Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin Samuel Turvey T OM F ORTMAKES F OUR N ATURAL S ELECTIONS P ETER D AVIES ONA C LUTCHOF B IRD B OOKS

P HILIP W OMACK

T OM F LEMING

P AMELA N ORRIS Apology for the Woman WritingJenny Diski M ICHELE R OBERTS The Fire Gospel Michel Faber C AROLINE M OOREHEAD Esther’s Inheritance Sándor Márai J OHNDE F ALBE The Wooden Village; The End of Freddy Peter Pist’anek S AM L EITH Land of Marvels Barry Unsworth C AROLE A NGIER Scarred Hearts Max Blecher L UCY B ERESFORD The First Person and Other Stories Ali Smith T ADZIO K OELB Me and Kaminski Daniel Kehlmann S USANNA J ONES The China Lover Ian Buruma

J ESSICA M ANN L UCY P OPESCU

LR CROSSWORD 1199 LR BOOKSHOP 2233 LR XMAS SUBS 7755

R AYMOND S EITZ was US Ambassador to the Court of St James from 1991 to 1994.

D IANA A THILL is the author of Stet and Yesterday Morning: A Very English Childhoodand, most recently, Somewhere Towards the End, all published by Granta Books.

D OMINIC S ANDBROOK ’s latest book, A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, is published by Little, Brown.

T OM H OLLAND ’s most recent book is Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom(Little, Brown).

R ICHARD O VERY ’s The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation 1919–1939will be published by Penguin in the spring.

A LLISTER H EATH is Editor of City AM.

A LEXANDER W AUGH ’s most recent book, The House of Wittgenstein, is published by Bloomsbury.

C OLIN B URROW is a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. His anthology of Metaphysical Poetryis available from Penguin.

M ICHAEL B URLEIGH ’s Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism will be available in paperback in April.

A LLAN M ASSIE is the author of nineteen novels, and his The Thistle and the Rose: Six Centuries of Love and Hate Between the Scots and the English, is published by John Murray.

O LEG G ORDIEVSKY 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 assistance of British Intelligence, he escaped and was brought to London. He survives, somewhere in England, to tell the tale, and has written four books, three of them in partnership with Christopher Andrew.

The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW Tel: 020 7437 9392 Fax: 020 7734 1844 ISSN 0144 4360 © All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, FREEPOST RRGR-ASHK-BTSL, Unit 14, 1-11 Willow Lane, Mitcham CR4 4NA Tel: 020 8687 3840 Fax: 020 8687 3841. UK Subscription Rate £32, Europe £39, rest of the world air mail only £54 (US$104) USA Airspeed subscription price is £39 (US$75) per annum. Periodical pre-paid at Champlain NY (USPS004218). All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW Tel: 020 7437 9392 Printed by Broglia Press, Enterprise House, 52 Holton Road, Holton Heath Trading Park, Poole, Dorset BH16 6LQ Tel: 01202 621 621 Distributed to newsagents worldwide by COMAG Specialist, Tavistock Works, Tavistock Rd, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 7QX Tel: 01895 433 800 Distributed to bookshops by Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 Tel: 020 8986 4854 www.literaryreview.co.uk subscription enquiries: theliteraryreview@warnes.co.uk email: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk

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LITERARY REVIEW Dec 08 / Jan 09