CONTENTS

THIS MONTH’S PULPIT is written by Allan Massie. His most recent novel is Surviving (Vagabond Voices).

DIANA ATHILL is the author of Somewhere Towards the End, which won the Costa Book Award for biography this year. Life Class: The Selected Memoirs of Diana Athill is published this month by Granta Books.

TIM BLANNING is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. His most recent book is The Triumph of Music (Penguin, 2008).

RICHARD OVERY’s The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars was published in May and his 1939: Countdown to War was published in August, both by Allen Lane.

JOHN SUTHERLAND’s bibliomemoir, Magic Moments, was published by Profile Books in 2008.

ALEXANDER WAUGH is working on a project to save authors from exploitation by the Internet.

DAVID CESARANI’s latest book, Major Farran’s Hat: Murder, Scandal and Britain’s War Against Jewish Terrorism, 1945–1948, is published by Heinemann.

FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO is the William P Reynolds Professor of History at Notre Dame. His books include Amerigo and The World: A History.

TOM NICHOLS is the author of Tintoretto, Tradition and Identity (Reaktion Books). He is currently working on a book entitled Titian and the End of the Venetian Renaissance.

SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE is editor of the Evening Standard’s Londoner’s Diary, which last month won the Editorial Intelligence Comment Award for best diary of 2009.

PULPIT

HISTORY

MUSIC & DANCE

ARISTOCRATS

BIOGRAPHY

ART & ARCHITECTURE

DEAR DOCTOR

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ALLAN MASSIE

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6

7 9

10

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CHRISTOPHER KELLY 428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire Giusto Traina ROBERT IRWIN Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades Jonathan Phillips RICHARD BARBER 1415: Henry V’s Year of Glory Ian Mortimer ADRIAN TINNISWOOD A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration Jenny Uglow FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World James Mather DOMINIC SANDBROOK Kissinger’s Year: 1973 Alistair Horne NIGEL JONES The Last Veteran Peter Parker Sapper Martin: The Secret Great War Diary of Albert Martin (Ed) Richard van Emden We Hope to Get Word Tomorrow: The Garvin Family Letters, 1914–1916 (Edd) Mark Pottle & John Ledingham We Will Remember Them: Voices from the Aftermath of the Great War Max Arthur The Great Silence 1918–1920: Living in the Shadow of the Great War Juliet Nicolson

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PATRICK O’CONNOR Journeying Boy: The Diaries of the Young Benjamin Britten 1928–1938 (Ed) John Evans TIM BLANNING The Gilded Stage: A Social History of Opera Daniel Snowman RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN Diaghilev: A Life Sjeng Scheijen

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JONATHAN BECKMAN Aristocracy and its Enemies in the Age of Revolution William Doyle ALEXANDER WAUGH Aristocrats: Power, Grace and Decadence – Britain’s Great Ruling Classes since 1066 Lawrence James

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RICHARD OVERY The Eitingons Mary-Kay Wilmers DAVID CESARANI Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death Toby Thacker SARAH BRADFORD The House of Borgia Christopher Hibbert

29 30 32

PAUL JOHNSON Edwin Landseer: The Private Drawings Richard Ormond TOM NICHOLS Titian: The Last Days Mark Hudson DAVID WATKIN Elizabethan Architecture: Its Rise and Fall, 1540–1640 Mark Girouard

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JAMES LE FANU The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the AntiDepressant Myth Irving Kirsch ANTHONY DANIELS Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives Brian Dillon

Editor: NANCY SLADEK Deputy Editor: TOM FLEMING Editor-at-Large: JEREMY LEWIS Assistant Editor: JONATHAN BECKMAN

Contributing Editors: SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE, 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. 371

LITERARY REVIEW November 2009

2 NOVEMBER 2009

BELLES LETTRES

MEMOIRS

GENERAL

FICTION

SILENCED VOICES POETRY COMPETITION CRIME LR CLASSIFIEDS LR CROSSWORD LR BOOKSHOP

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38

39 40

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45 47 48

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53 54 55 56 57 58

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PAUL BAILEY Fat, Gluttony and Sloth: Representing Obesity in Literature, Art and Medicine David Haslam & Fiona Haslam

ELSPETH BARKER Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (Edd) Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irené Wotherspoon JOHN SUTHERLAND Howards End is on the Landing Susan Hill

ROBERT CHESSHYRE True Compass: A Memoir Edward MKennedy CATHERINE PETERS Passageways: The Story of a New Zealand Family Ann Thwaite JONATHAN MIRSKY Confessions of a Mullah Warrior Masood Farivar SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE Redeeming Features: A Memoir Nicholas Haslam

MICHAEL BURLEIGH No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations Mark Mazower BEN WILSON The Political Gene: How Darwin’s Ideas Changed Politics Dennis Sewell JONATHAN DERBYSHIRE Diaries George Orwell RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES Contact! Jan Morris MARY KENNY Occasions of Sin: Sex & Society in Modern Ireland Diarmaid Ferriter DIANA ATHILL The Plot: A Biography of an English Acre Madeleine Bunting JEREMY LEWIS The Freedoms of Suburbia Paul Barker

JOHN DUGDALE Beginners Raymond Carver JOHN DE FALBE Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell Javier Marías OPHELIA FIELD The Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver SAM LEITH The Humbling Philip Roth ALAN RAFFERTY Invisible Paul Auster CHRISTOPHER BIGSBY Presence: Collected Stories Arthur Miller JOHN MURRAY The Good Angel of Death Andrey Kurkov TOBY LICHTIG The Wild Things Dave Eggers

LUCY POPESCU

JESSICA MANN

MICHAEL BURLEIGH’s Blood & Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism is available in paperback from HarperPerennial.

CHRISTOPHER KELLY 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.

ROBERT IRWIN’s latest book is For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

RICHARD BARBER is working on a study of Edward III and the Knights of the Garter as a military and social group, to be published by Allen Lane in 2010.

ROBERT CHESSHYRE is a former US correspondent of The Observer.

BEN WILSON’s What Price Liberty? was published in May by Faber.

MARY KENNY’s most recent book is Crown and Shamrock: Love and Hate between Ireland and the British Monarchy (New Island).

DAVID WATKIN’s latest book, The Roman Forum, was published in April by Profile Books.

ADRIAN TINNISWOOD’s next book, Pirates of the Mediterranean: True Stories of Corsairs, Converts and Conquest, will be published by Jonathan Cape next spring.

JAMES LE FANU is a doctor in South London. His most recent book, Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, was published by HarperPress earlier this year.

NIGEL JONES is writing a history of the Tower of London for Hutchinson.

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LITERARY REVIEW November 2009