Tag Archives: book-review

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)

Posted on September 5, 2025 by drewsmith28

“He was lying on a varnished wooden board, the top of a boxed-in radiator.” The opening is slow, Andrew Miller has just turned on the fire to boil a kettle, like an episode of the Archers, quite a lot of … Continue reading →

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Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Penguin/Viking)

Posted on August 29, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is nigh” THE flap quotes the Sunday Times as saying that Benjamin Wood is ‘Britain’s answer to Donna Tart’. Except he writes better and Seascape … Continue reading →

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Wild Thing by Sue Pridaux (Faber)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Shortly after his first birthday, Paul Gaugin was bundled aboard a ship called The Albert, to sail some 12,000 miles from the French port of Le Havre to Peru.” The Peru link above is not insignificant. This book was sparked … Continue reading →

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A Life in Fifty Books by Anthony Cheetham (Head of Zeus)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

I am not inclined usually to fall for this kind of congratulatory memoir. But this is Anthony Cheetham, publisher extraordinaire. He has brought many books to market down the years from Frank Herbet’s Dune to Michael Connelly’s Bosch detective series. … Continue reading →

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The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Posted on October 10, 2024 by drewsmith28

The trigger for this exhilarating romp through literary Victoriana was a sale at the auction house of Sotheby’s. A first edition of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol sold for a record sum. The inscription was to a Mrs Touchet. Meet Eliza. … Continue reading →

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Death in Pont Aven by Jean-Luc Bannalec

Posted on October 7, 2024 by drewsmith28

THE light first drew artists to the north west of France. Most famously it was Gauguin and his portraits of girls in clogs and costumes, one of many.  Pont Aven, a sleepy one church town on a creek was where … Continue reading →

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