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The Day of the Jackal (Sky Atlantic)

This mega-production by Sky starring Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Logan and Charles Dance inevitably invites comparison with the Frederick Forsyth best-selling novel and the 1973 Fred Zinnermann film with Edward Fox. Frederick Forsyth admitted that he was paid vast amounts of money to do nothing or [...]

December 13, 2024 // 0 Comments

Two art books: Rogues and Scholars/Don’t Tell Sybil

Rogues and Scholars, penned by the ex-chairman of Sothebys – James Stourton – is a fairly comprehensive and balanced assessment of the London art market from 1945 to 2000. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the author centres on the two main players – the auction houses Christie’s and [...]

December 11, 2024 // 0 Comments

RECENT MODERN FICTION

The Proof of My Innocence (Jonathan Coe) I am a big Jonathan Coe fan and a new book of his is a great event. This differs from previous novels as it is a detective thriller about the murder of a left wing blogger Christopher Swann at a right wing conference hosted by Lord Wetherby.  Coe is a [...]

November 20, 2024 // 0 Comments

One Hell of a Life/biography of Brian Close by Stephen Chalke

Personally, whilst I respected Brian Close, not least for his often reckless courage, he was never a favourite of mine – there was too much of the curmudgeonly Yorkshireman for me. Stephen Chalke is more sympathetic of “Closey”. Close had the longest first class career of any [...]

October 19, 2024 // 0 Comments

Taste/Stanley Tucci: My Life Through Food (2021)

Stanley Tucci is a successful film actor who has made a second career of out his great interest in – and love of – food. I first became aware of this through his TV programmes travelling to different cities and reporting on their cuisine. He develops this in his book starting with [...]

October 17, 2024 // 0 Comments

Gabriel’s Moon/William Boyd

A newly published William Boyd novel is a big literary event especially for his legion of followers. The general critical view is his recent novels fall short of his earliest West African  ones and Any Human Heart. He is a master story teller and Gabriel’s Moon conforms to that. There are [...]

October 9, 2024 // 0 Comments

Jamaica Inn/Daphne du Maurier

oAfter reading non-fiction it was a pleasure to return to a Daphne du Maurier novel I had not read. Jamaica Inn showcases Daphne du Maurer’s ability as a writer: she can tell a good story and conveys a fine sense of location and atmosphere. The story’s heroine is 23 year old Mary Yellan [...]

September 9, 2024 // 0 Comments

Joe Solomon and the Spirit of Mourant/Clem Seecharan

Port Mourant, a sugar plantation on the Corenyne Coast of Guyana, is a remarkable place as it has spawned 4 famous West Indian cricketers – Basil Butcher, Rohan Kanhai and Joe Solomon –  and later Alvin Kallicharan, a political leader Cheggi Jagan and the author Professor Clem [...]

August 30, 2024 // 0 Comments

Worrell/Simon Lister

This biography serves as an illuminating follow up to Who Only Cricket Knows.   Frank Worrell was the first black cricketer to captain the West Indies for a full series. A member of the three Ws triumvirate Caribbean; Clyde Walcott, who like Worrell went to Combermere school, and Everton Weekes [...]

August 10, 2024 // 0 Comments

Who Only Cricket Knows/David Woodhouse

This is a book prize-winning account of the 1953-1954 tour to the Caribbean led by Len Hutton and managed by Charles Palmer. The title is an adaptation from Rudyard Kipling by the Marxist writer C.R James which reflected one of the tensions of the tour – nascent Caribbean nationalism – [...]

July 31, 2024 // 0 Comments

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