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Books Reviews
'The Warmth of the Heart Prevents Your Body from Rusting' By Marie de Hennezel
In this eloquent meditation on ageing, Marie de Hennezel guides us through a true 'art of growing old'. She recalls her encounters as a clinical psychologist with extraordinary people who 'grow old gracefully' and through her experience shows us how to make the most of this time in our lives, to avoid depression and to stay happy. She believes that wherever we grow old and whatever our circumstances, if we can maintain energy in our hearts and believe in the power of joy and human warmth, this can transform us and the way we look at the world.
Circling My Mother By Mary Gordon
“In the last years of her life,” Mary Gordon writes about her mother, “she was, in her wretchedness, my tormentor. Her body tortured me: the sight of it, its smell. Living, she was a torturer, and now, among the dead, she is entirely innocent.”
A Dangerous Liaison By Carole Seymour-Jones
It was Dostoevsky who first espoused the notion that if God is dead, everything is permissible. It became one of the founding tenets of existentialist philosophy, but until reading Carole Seymour-Jones's excellent new biography of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, I hadn't quite realised the diabolic glee with which this pair applied the belief to their daily lives.
Born on a blue day By Daniel Tammet
A journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today--guided by its owner. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn new languages from scratch, in a week. He has savant syndrome, a rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers. But in one crucial way Daniel is not at all like the Rain Man: he is virtually unique among autistic people in that he is capable of living an independent life. He is even able to explain what is happening inside his head.
Wilfred Owen: A New Biography By Dominic Hibberd
In 1918, ten days before an armistice ended World War One, the British Army buried yet another of their brave young soldiers in shell-torn France. Not interred with Lt. Wilfred Owen, but left scattered among relatives and friends in England, was a rich legacy of letters and poems. Since published, these have established Owen as the preeminent voice among the 'pity of war' poets of the 20th century.
The Sealed Letter By Emma Donoghue
After a separation of many years, Emily 'Fido' Faithfull bumps into her old friend Helen Codrington on the streets of Victorian London. Much has changed: Helen is more and more unhappy in her marriage to the older Vice-Admiral Codrington, while Fido has become a successful woman of business and a pioneer in the British Women's Movement. But, for all her independence of mind, Fido is too trusting of her once-dear companion and finds herself drawn into aiding Helen's obsessive affair with a young army officer.
Charles Dickens: A Life, by Claire Tomalin
In 1837, the philosopher John Stuart Mill was introduced to a young novelist named Charles Dickens. Describing him as having a dingy blackguard’s face “irradiated with genius,” Mill must have been startled by his foppish clothes and confidence, for he added, “Such a phenomenon does not often appear in a lady’s drawing room.” Nor does such a phenomenon appear often in a country’s literature: Almost 200 years after his birth, Dickens remains England’s second-greatest writer, after Shakespeare, and its greatest novelist.
The Thirteenth Tale By Diane Setterfield
The Thirteenth Tale is reminiscent of classic British novels, like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. It has tragedy, romance, moors, and dark, stormy nights. In a way, The Thirteenth Tale is a homage to these and all other great works of literature. The power of books and stories is foremost in the novel, and as the main character gets lost in one story, you'll find yourself lost with her in the story within a story (as well as the story surrounding the character's story).
Jamie's Great Britain By Jamie Oliver
Celebrating Britain's very best food Jamie grew up in one of the first true British "gastropubs", which his Mum and Dad still run today. For him, the heart and soul of real British cooking is food that puts a smile on your face. And that's what he wants to share in the new book: the essence of British food, done properly. Over the years, British food culture has embraced flavours and influences from all the people who came and made Great Britain their home. The food reflects an open-minded culture as well as the country's beauty.
Spies of the Balkans, By Alan Furst
Alan Furst has done this century what Eric Ambler and John le Carré did in the last. He has achieved a complete reinvention of the Second World War spy novel as a vehicle for deeper insights into the human character, especially as it come under the pressure of accelerating history. Spies of the Balkans is the latest of his page-turners about the coming threat of Nazism and German occupation in the regions of Europe that were neither immediately conquered like France or Poland, nor which held out like Britain.