CONTENTS

appleby steven bY

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Review of Books

Issue 19 SPRING 2012

NOT FORGETTING... important titles recently REVIEWED IN THE OLDIE

• The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II

and her People by Andrew Marr • The West End Front: The Wartime

Secrets of London’s Grand Hotels by Matthew Sweet • How to Disappear by Duncan Fallowell • Outsider by Brian Sewell • The Wartime Journals by Hugh Trevor-Roper • The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin • The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco • Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies • Mafia State by Luke Harding

I N T H I S I S S UE

4. BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR Queen Anne Anne Somerset; Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson; The Train in the Night Nick Coleman; Fortune’s Spear Martin Vander Weyer; The Dickens Bicentenary; Our Queen Robert Hardman; John Bright Bill Cash; Eva Braun: Life with Hitler Heike B Görtemaker; The Omnivore’s Hatchet Job of the Year Award

9. WHAT A HOWLER! Jeremy Lewis bemoans mistakes in books

10. HISTORY Ian Fleming’s Commandos Nicholas Rankin; Magnificent Obsession Helen Rappaport; Titanic Lives Richard Davenport-Hines; Target Tirpitz Richard Holmes; Spies & Commissars Robert Service; In the Lion’s Shadow Fariborz L Mokhtari; The Gentry Adam Nicolson; The Dreyfus Affair Piers Paul Read

11. pick ofthe PAPERBACKS 14. POLITICS & CURRENT AFFAIRS War Against the Taliban Sandy Gall; No Higher Honour Condoleezza Rice; El Narco Ioan Grillo; You Can’t Say That Ken Livingstone

16. LITERARY LIVES Martin Amis: The Biography Richard Bradford; Blue Nights Joan Didion; The Horror of Love Lisa Hilton; Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson; The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume II; Hemingway’s Boat Paul Hendrickson; The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume I; Lives of the Novelists John Sutherland; Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters

17. OBITUARY Christopher Logue, 1926–2011

21. ENTERTAINMENT Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend of the World’s Most Famous Dog Susan Orlean; Then Again Diane Keaton

22. ORDER FORM 23. ART Hockney: The Biography Christopher Simon Sykes; Van Gogh: The Life Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

24. MISCELLANEOUS Stranger Magic Marina Warner; Religion for Atheists Alain de Botton; Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil Tom Mueller; Londoners Craig Taylor; A Shed of One’s Own Marcus Berkmann; Green Philosophy Roger Scruton

27. FICTION Death Comes to Pemberley P D James; The House of Silk Anthony Horowitz; How It All Began Penelope Lively

30. REPRINTS The British: The National Character Observed Pont; An Ice-cream War William Boyd; Heart to Heart: A Cardinal Newman Prayer Book; Operation Sea Lion: Hitler’s Plot to

Invade England Peter Fleming

Published by The Oldie magazine, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG Editorial panel: Richard Ingrams, Jeremy Lewis, Sonali Chapman, James Pembroke, Brian MacArthur, Christopher Silvester Reviews Editor: Sonali Chapman Design: Joseph Buckley, Silvia Baz Reviewers: Jonathan Beckman, Sonali Chapman, Jennie Erdal, Tom Fleming, Richard Ingrams, Lucy Lethbridge, Jeremy Lewis, Imogen Lycett Green, Robert Low, Brian MacArthur, Melanie McDonagh, Nick Parker, Christopher Silvester Publisher: James Pembroke Advertising: Lisa Martin, Azmi Elkholy, Jack Watts For advertising enquiries, call Lisa Martin on 020 7487 8405 For editorial enquiries, call 020 7436 8801 or email editorial@theoldie.co.uk

Spring 2012 Review of Books THE OLDIE 3