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Tag Archives: non-fiction

Beneath the mountains

Review of Alexandria: the Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson. — For The Spectator

She’s a lumberjack – and she’s not OK

Review of Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest, by Suzanne Simard. — For Geographical

A season in ‘Hell’

Review of Jonathan C Slaght’s compelling Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. — For Geographical

‘Cheese sandwich optional’

Review of Lev Parikian’s cheerful and entertaining Into the Tangled Bank: In which our author ventures outside to consider the British in nature. — For Geographical

You want appease of me?!

The Hitler Years: Triumph 1933-1939 by Frank McDonough Head of Zeus £30 . In the early- to mid-1930s my grandmother (Irish, South African, later Australian) lived for a few years in the east of Germany, as a language assistant/housemistress in a boarding school. Her one recorded comment about Hitler’s accession to power was that he […]

Islamic cities

Review of Justin Marozzi’s Islamic Empires: Fifteen Cities that Define a Civilization. — For Geographical

Hit and miss

Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943 By Max Hastings William Collins £25 . By 1943, after nearly four years of war ‘ameliorated [only] by a thin gruel of successes,’ Britain and her western allies had little to boast in terms of their offensive victories; the lion’s share of the burden was very clearly being shouldered by […]

The future starts… in Brighton

Review of John Higgs’ The Future Starts Here: Adventures in the Twenty-First Century. — For Geographical

Out and aboutpost

Outpost: a journey to the wild ends of the earth by Dan Richards Canongate £16.99 (hardback) . Imagination fired by a picture of his father outside an Arctic shed, artist and writer Dan Richards sets off in search of places that ‘allow mankind a foothold in otherwise inhospitable terrain’. Icelandic ‘houses of joy’ (not what […]

Ivory-tower thinking

Review of Future Cities: Architecture and the Imagination, by Paul Dobraszczyk. — For Geographical