CONTENTS

THIS MONTH’S PULPIT is written by Donald Rayfield. Updated versions of his Stalin and his Hangmen have recently been published in Russia and Poland, and his new translation of Gogol’s Dead Souls, with 96 engravings by Marc Chagall, is available from Garnett Press.

ALAN RYAN retired as Warden of New College on 31 August; he looks forward to having the time to read and write the books he had no time for in the past decade.

SARAH BRADFORD is writing a book about Queen Victoria.

FREDERIC RAPHAEL’s most recent book is the fourth volume of his Personal Terms, entitled Ticks and Crosses (Carcanet).

RICHARD FORTEY FRS was formerly a senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum. He has written six books, the latest being Dry Store Room No.1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum (HarperCollins).

LEANDA DE LISLE’s latest book is The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine & Lady Jane Grey (HarperPress).

DOMINIC SANDBROOK’s latest book, A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties, is published by Little, Brown. He is currently Senior Fellow at the Rothermere Institute, University of Oxford.

STEPHEN BRUMWELL’s Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe was selected as one of the Top 100 Books of 2007 by Canada’s Globe & Mail newspaper, and won the 2008 Distinguished Book Award of the Society of Colonial Wars, New York.

FRANCES WILSON is writing a book about the owner of the Titanic.

PULPIT

LITERARY LIVES

HISTORY

STAGE & SCREEN

BIOGRAPHY

ART & ARCHITECTURE

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DONALD RAYFIELD

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DAVID PRYCE-JONES Muriel Spark: The Biography Martin Stannard PAUL JOHNSON Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing Michael Slater FREYA JOHNSTON Samuel Johnson: A Life David Nokes RALEIGH TREVELYAN William Golding: The Man Who Wrote ‘Lord of the Flies’ John Carey DIANA ATHILL The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham Selina Hastings JEREMY LEWIS James Lees-Milne: The Life Michael Bloch

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LEANDA DE LISLE Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen Tracy Borman STEPHEN BRUMWELL Death or Victory: The Battle of Quebec and the Birth of Empire Dan Snow DAVID CESARANI Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis Anna von der Goltz ARCHIE BROWN The Red Flag: Communism and the Making of the Modern World David Priestland DOMINIC SANDBROOK Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia Francis Wheen JAMES HOLLAND Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940–45 Max Hastings JONATHAN DERBYSHIRE History Man: The Life of R G Collingwood Fred Inglis ALAN RYAN Keynes: The Return of the Master Robert Skidelsky

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PATRICK O’CONNOR Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth MacMillan Jann Parry FRANK MCLYNN Joseph P Kennedy’s Hollywood Years Cari Beauchamp

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RICHARD FORTEY An Infinity of Things: How Sir Henry Wellcome Collected the World Frances Larson PETER MARSHALL Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe Stuart Carroll FREDERIC RAPHAEL Judas: A Biography Susan Gubar SARAH BRADFORD The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires and the Road to World War One Miranda Carter

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PEYTON SKIPWITH John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art Frances Spalding HARRY MOUNT The Secret Lives of Buildings: From the Parthenon to the Vegas Strip in Thirteen Stories Edward Hollis

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. 369

LITERARY REVIEW September 2009

2 SEPTEMBER 2009

FOREIGN PARTS

GENERAL

FICTION

SILENCED VOICES CRIME LETTERS POETRY COMPETITION LR CLASSIFIEDS LR CROSSWORD LR BOOKSHOP

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RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES Venice: Pure City Peter Ackroyd ANDREW LYCETT The Diamond Smugglers; Thrilling Cities Ian Fleming JOHN JOLLIFFE Along the Enchanted Way: A Romanian Story William Blacker

JONATHAN MIRSKY I Am Justice: A Journey Out of Africa Paul Kenyon KEITH LOWE Lancaster: The Second World War’s Greatest Bomber Leo McKinstry CHARLES ELLIOTT Eyewitness: The Rise and Fall of Dorling Kindersley Christopher Davis FRANCES WILSON Woman as Design: Before Behind Between Above Below Stephen Bayley NICK FOULKES Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smoothed Richard Anderson JOHN SUTHERLAND Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir Rick Gekoski CHARLIE CAMPBELL For Richer, for Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker Victoria Coren LINDY BURLEIGH ‘The Daily Telegraph’ Book of Imperial and Commonwealth Obituaries (ed) David Twiston Davies

LYNDALL GORDON Summertime: Scenes from Provincial Life J M Coetzee PAMELA NORRIS The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood FRANCIS KING The Wilderness Samantha Harvey DJTAYLOR The Man in the Wooden Hat Jane Gardam KATE SAUNDERS The Bradshaw Variations Rachel Cusk JONATHAN BARNES The People’s Train Thomas Keneally MICHAEL ARDITTI Let the Great World Spin Colum McCann DAVID JAYS The Infinities John Banville STEPHEN AMIDON Generation A Douglas Coupland TIM MARTIN Ordinary Thunderstorms William Boyd SUZI FEAY A Week in September Sebastian Faulks

LUCY POPESCU ON NATALIA ESTEMIROVA JESSICA MANN

ARCHIE BROWN is the author of The Rise and Fall of Communism, published by The Bodley Head this year.

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

LYNDALL GORDON is the author of Shared Lives, a memoir of women’s friendship in her native Cape Town (Virago, 2005).

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

KEITH LOWE is the author of Inferno: The Devastation of Hamburg, 1943.

PETER MARSHALL is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. His most recent book is Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story (2007).

NICHOLAS FOULKES is writing a book about the gambling mania of early Victorian England and the great Derby scandal of 1844.

ANDREW LYCETT’s new book, Kipling Abroad, is published next month. He is the author of several biographies including one of Ian Fleming.

JAMES HOLLAND is the author of Italy’s Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944–1945.

MICHAEL ARDITTI’s latest novel, The Enemy of the Good, is published by Arcadia, who have also reissued his first, The Celibate.

CHARLIE CAMPBELL is writing a history of scapegoats, due to be published by Duckworth in spring 2011. He worked for Literary Review for three years, during which time he taught the other staff to play poker while the editor was on holiday.

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LITERARY REVIEW September 2009