Category Archives: Non fiction

Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs (Jonathan Cape)

Posted on September 15, 2014 by drewsmith28

“Monday, 1928” GRAPHIC novels as a genre can be more informed than screenplays. Film shoots with shot photos and dialogue always seem to end up shamefully in remainder shops, but illustration can also be a dangerous medium too often cliched … Continue reading →

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Hack Attack by Nick Davies (Chatto and Windus)

Posted on August 15, 2014 by drewsmith28

“This is the strangest story I have ever written.” This is also a brilliant piece of aggressive, personalised investigative, well written journalism, an expose of British high (and not so high or grand) grandees at work. There is an extra … Continue reading →

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Zeitoon by Dave Eggers (Hamish Hamilton)

Posted on August 7, 2014 by drewsmith28

“On moonless nights the men and boys of Jableh, a dusty fishing town on the coast of Syria, would gather their lanterns and set out in their quietest boats…” America likes rules. After the 10 commandments came another 10,000 lesser … Continue reading →

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Reportage

Posted on June 27, 2014 by drewsmith28

There is a very good piece by Nick Davies on the phone hacking debacle here http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/25/-sp-phone-hacking-trial-rebekah-brooks-rupert-murdoch Nice girl, Rebekah

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Pommes de terre by Frederic Anton (La Chene)

Posted on June 25, 2014 by drewsmith28

“J’aime la pomme de terre. La frite croustillante a l’exterieur, fondante a l’interieur, juste salee. Les pommes rissolees, avec leur parfum de beurre.” This is still in French but mostly it is recipes which are easy enough to follow with … Continue reading →

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Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal (Vintage)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by drewsmith28

Edmund de Waal pronounces in his prologue that this story could almost tell it itself. Yes and no, Edmund. To anyone whose family were part of the same exodus from Odessa to Vienna to Paris as Russia, as then was, … Continue reading →

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Life: Keith Richards (Phoenix)

Posted on April 9, 2014 by drewsmith28

Chapter One; In which I am pulled over by police officers in Arkansas during our 1975 tour and a stand off ensues… It is not the salacious tittle tattle or the schoolboy sniggering (or the size of one M. Jagger’s … Continue reading →

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Leviathan by Philip Hoare (Fourth Estate)

Posted on February 27, 2014 by drewsmith28

“Perhaps it is because I was nearly born underwater” A wonderful book of journalistic discovery about whales. I read it too long ago to review it properly but it stays in my mind as one of the reasons to start … Continue reading →

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Meander by Jeremy Seal (Chatto & Windus)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by drewsmith28

“I would have gone down the Meander years ago if I’d known it existed.” Apart from the maps, which are almost as deliberately confusing as perhaps the suspicious Turkish military might have intended for foreigners, this is a brilliantly informative … Continue reading →

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Hhhh by Laurent Binet (Harvill Secker)

Posted on January 17, 2014 by drewsmith28

“Gabcik – that’s his name – really did exist. Lying alone on a little iron bed, did he hear, from outside, beyond the shutters of a darkened apartment, the unmistakeable creaking of the Prague tramways. I want to believe so.” … Continue reading →

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