My Top Ten Reads of 2019

The last third of this year has been a bit of a washout in terms of my reading - starting a new job has meant that I've barely read a word. I didn't touch much of the Booker list and I can only just about manage the review section of the paper at the weekend. …

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The Order of the Day – Éric Vuillard

‘Great catastrophes often creep up on us in tiny steps.’ This short book is a brilliant and original look at the machinations and meetings which paved the way for the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, and thus the road to global war. It’s a chilling reminder that simply doing nothing is enough to allow such …

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ – Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

I'd be lying if I said that the recent use of this novel's famous opening paragraph in an advert (BT?) hadn't been a small nudge to finally get reading this classic. I have been setting the opening as a prac. crit. text for years, feeling like a complete charlatan each time because I have an …