CONTENTS

T HISMONTH ’ SPULPIT is written by John Sutherland, whose latest book, Magic Moments, was recently reviewed by Diana Athill (LR, Oct 2008). He is the Lord Northcliffe Professor of English Emeritus at UCL. Often thought to be the Latin for ‘without merit’, emeritus actually means scrapheap.

M ICHAEL O’B RIEN is Professor American Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge. His Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860(The University of North Caroline Press) won the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History.

K ENAN M ALIK is Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Surrey. His books include Strange Fruit (2008), Man, Beast and Zombie(2000) and The Meaning of Race(1996).

S ELINA H ASTINGS ’s biography of Somerset Maugham will be published in September.

C HRISTOPHER K ELLY is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His latest book, Attila the Hun: Barbarian Terror and the Fall of Rome, was published by Bodley Head last year.

T IMOTHY B ROOK is the Shaw Professor of Chinese at Oxford and most recently the author of Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World(Profile).

P HILLIP K NIGHTLEY is the author of Australia: A Biography of a Nation(Vintage).

J OHN M AN , the author of Gobi: Tracking The Desert and Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection,has travelled widely in Mongolia and north China.

E DWARD N ORMAN is Emeritus Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Curate of the St James Garlickhythe Church in the City of London.

PULPIT

EARTH &MAN

HISTORY

AMERICA

FOREIGN PARTS

ART & MUSIC

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J OHN S UTHERLAND

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J OHN G RAY The Vanishing Face of Gaia James Lovelock He Knew He Was Right: The Irrepressible Life of James Lovelock and Gaia John & Mary Gribbin K ENAN M ALIK Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins Adrian Desmond & James Moore

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C HRISTOPHER K ELLY The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 Chris Wickham T IMOTHY B ROOK Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: History’s Greatest Naval Disaster James Delgado P ETER J ONES Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths Robin Waterfield J ONATHAN S UMPTION Fighting for the Cross: Crusading to the Holy Land Norman Housley P ETER M ARSHALL The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England Keith Thomas A DRIAN T INNISWOOD The English Civil Wars 1640–1660 Blair Worden C AROLINE M OOREHEAD Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom, Europe, 1944–1945 William I Hitchcock

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D OMINIC S ANDBROOK Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Kearns Goodwin R AYMOND S EITZ America, Empire of Liberty: A New History David Reynolds M ICHAEL O’B RIEN In Reckless Hands: ‘Skinner v Oklahoma’ and the Near Triumph of American Eugenics Victoria F Nourse F RANK M C L YNN Frontiersman: Daniel Boone and the Making of America Meredith Mason Brown

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H AZHIR T EIMOURIAN Khomeini’s Ghost: Iran Since 1979 Con Coughlin P HILLIP K NIGHTLEY The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island Chloe Hooper J ANE R YE The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy Rachel Cusk J OHN M AN Mysteries of the Gobi: Searching for Wild Camels and Lost Cities in the Heart of Asia John Hare

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F RANCES S PALDING Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter Martin Gayford P AUL J OHNSON Richard Parkes Bonington: The Complete Paintings Patrick Noon P ETER W ASHINGTON Paintings in Proust Eric Karpeles S IMON H EFFER Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music John Lucas

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. 362

LITERARY REVIEW February 2009

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BIOGRAPHY &

MEMOIR

GENERAL

FICTION

LETTERS

SILENCED VOICES

CRIME

POETRY COMPETITION

AUDIOBOOK

LR CLASSIFIEDS

LR CROSSWORD

LR BOOKSHOP

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E DWARD N ORMAN The She-Apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa de Carvajal Glyn Redworth R UPERT C HRISTIANSEN Sybil Thorndike: A Star of Life Jonathan Croall S ELINA H ASTINGS Love’s Civil War: Elizabeth Bowen & Charles Ritchie – Letters & Diaries 1941–1973 Victoria Glendinning (Ed) A DAM S ISMAN Maurice Bowra: A Life Leslie Mitchell F RANCIS K ING Second Thoughts Brian Masters

M ICHAEL B URLEIGH Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War Jeffrey A Lockwood A NTHONY D ANIELS Taking the Medicine: A Short History of Medicine’s Beautiful Idea and Our Difficulty Swallowing It Druin Birch Direct Red: A Surgeon’s StoryGabriel Weston J ONATHAN M IRSKY Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning Jonah Goldberg D ONALD R AYFIELD Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction Rowan Williams E LSPETH B ARKER The Natural History of Unicorns Chris Lavers F RANCES W ILSON Perfumes: The Guide Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez T HOMAS M ARKS Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report Iain Sinclair B ELINDA H OLLYER Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter Seth Lerer J EREMY L EWIS The Peculiar Life of Sundays Stephen Miller

W ENDY B RANDMARK RhymingLife and Death Amos Oz M ARTYN B EDFORD The Glass House Simon Mawer S IMON B AKER The Last Bachelor Jay McInerney R ACHEL H ORE The Hidden Tobias Hill P HILIP W OMACK Heliopolis James Scudamore D AVID J AYS The Holy City Patrick McCabe C HARLOTTE A PPLEYARD Beautiful People Wendy Holden L INDY B URLEIGHON T HREE F IRST N OVELS

L UCY P OPESCU J ESSICA M ANN

S USAN C ROSLAND

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

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

J ONATHAN S UMPTION is the author of a history of the Hundred Years War, and a practising QC.

A DAM S ISMAN is writing a life of Hugh Trevor-Roper, due to be published next year.

P ETER M ARSHALL is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. His most recent book is Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A GhostStory(2007).

E LSPETH B ARKER is an awardwinning novelist, essayist and journalist. She is also a detective.

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

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

A DRIAN T INNISWOOD ’s most recent book is The Verneys: A True Story of Love, War and Madness in SeventeenthCentury England(Jonathan Cape).

P ETER W ASHINGTON is General Editor of the Everyman’s Library.

H AZHIR T EIMOURIAN is the author of Omar Khayyam: Poet, Rebel, Astronomer (Sutton).

F RANK M C L YNN is the author of over twenty books. His new book, Marcus Aurelius, is published next month by the Bodley Head.

R UPERT C HRISTIANSEN writes on the arts for the DailyTelegraph.

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LITERARY REVIEW February 2009