OPERATION MINCEMEAT by BEN MACINTYRE

This enthralling book made perfect lockdown reading. Any personal, self-indulgent tendency to wallow in despair at the Coronavirus crisis swamping the world, could be put into some sort of context while reading this book. When the entire world was at war, when Hitler’s troops were planning a mass invasion of …

FARZANA by JULIA KEAY

What a joy this biography is. An absolute delight to read and oh-so interesting to learn about a fascinating historical figure, about whom I was – admission time – hitherto woefully ignorant. The life of Farzana, known as Begum Samru, is a classic rags-to-riches story, told with verve and much …

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows

A second reading of this book was most definitely called for, after seeing the trailer for the film of the same name.  (The film is  yet to be seen, though I’m saddened by the lukewarm reviews it got).  I’d read the book almost immediately after it was published in 2008 …

A NECESSARY EVIL by Abir Mukherjee

Reading Abir Mukherjee’s “A Necessary Evil” was a fine balancing act between dying to know what happened next, and dreading the approaching end of the book. This absolute cracker of a novel is a fine and worthy successor to Mr. Mukherjee’s first novel “A Rising Man“, and it is with …