This is the third novel by Emily St. John Mandel that I’ve read this month. I’m binge-reading her books in no particular order, starting with the most recent, but that’s also pretty…Read more…

Having read (and loved) Sea of Tranquility I was surprised to discover the same characters in this earlier book by Emily St. John Mandel. I may be reading the books in the wrong order, but…Read more…

Having read (and loved) Sea of Tranquility I was surprised to discover the same characters in this earlier book by Emily St. John Mandel. I may be reading the books in the wrong order, but…Read more…

I love a good time travel story – and I loved this one so much that I finished it in two days. (To be fair, it’s a short book.). The author works with two well-worn…Read more…

I love a good time travel story – and I loved this one so much that I finished it in two days. (To be fair, it’s a short book.). The author works with two well-worn…Read more…

If only! Productivity expert Cal Newport makes a compelling argument against the way we use email now, and anyone who struggles with overflowing inboxes will learn from what he writes. But he…Read more…

Barbara Walter’s book has a promising beginning. An academic who has been studying civil wars for some time now, she tries to come up with an explanation for why civil wars happen. A lot of…Read more…

Avi Loeb is the head of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University and is one of the world leaders in his field. He believes that ‘Oumuamua, an object detected in 2017 as it flew through…Read more…

Avi Loeb is the head of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University and is one of the world leaders in his field. He believes that ‘Oumuamua, an object detected in 2017 as it flew through…Read more…

Dick Tregaskis was a legendary American war correspondent who covered the Second World War, Korea and Vietnam. When he was just 26 years old, he accompanied Marines who landed on the island of…Read more…

Dick Tregaskis was a legendary American war correspondent who covered the Second World War, Korea and Vietnam. When he was just 26 years old, he accompanied Marines who landed on the island of…Read more…

Ben Macintyre is a brilliant storyteller – and this is a brilliant story. The story is a relatively simple one: With an Allied invasion of Sicily imminent in 1943, the British decided to…Read more…

Ben Macintyre is a brilliant storyteller – and this is a brilliant story. The story is a relatively simple one: With an Allied invasion of Sicily imminent in 1943, the British decided to…Read more…

Science journalist David Robson makes something very clear early on in this book: this is NOT going to be one of those books (like Rhonda Byrne’s best-selling The Secret) that insists you can…Read more…

Science journalist David Robson makes something very clear early on in this book: this is NOT going to be one of those books (like Rhonda Byrne’s best-selling The Secret) that insists you can…Read more…

Every time I think that the news is awful, that things cannot be worse, I try to imagine what it was like in the spring of 1940. The Germans took basically all of western Europe…Read more…

Every time I think that the news is awful, that things cannot be worse, I try to imagine what it was like in the spring of 1940. The Germans took basically all of western Europe…Read more…

It’s been a half century since Paul Avrich’s definitive history of the Kronstadt mutiny first appeared — and a full century since the revolt itself. Others have written about how…Read more…

While we wait for the next Slough House novel to come out (on 12 May, but who’s counting) and for the Apple TV series based on that those characters (no release date yet), along comes…Read more…

Owen Matthews knows the Soviet Union. First of all, he was born in Leningrad. He went on to become a journalist there, serving as Newsweek’s Moscow correspondent for years. He wrote an excellent…Read more…