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Damon Galgut wins 2021 Booker Prize for The Promise

Can’t tell you how excited I am about the choice of Damon Galgut’s The Promise as this year’s Booker Prize winner. It’s an exceptional book, written by a hugely talented author. The story of the disintegration of the South-African Swart family will stay with you for a long time. Read our review here.

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Letters Live at Royal Albert Hall

On the week Mark Zuckerberg announced his plan for a metaverse, attending the deliciously analog Letters Live at Royal Albert Hall was like balm to the soul. Letters Live, inspired by the best-selling book series Letters of Note, is a live, bi-annual (more or less) event in which famous actors read letters dealing with anything from a customer complaint to Virgin Airlines (which made it all the way to Richard Branson for its hilarity), a sublime love letter, to a heart-wrenching post-humous letter written by a 19 year-old soldier killed in Afghanistan and many more. A packed Royal Albert Hall (with an encouraging number of 20yr olds!) was treated to readings by Benedict Cumberbatch, Gillian Anderson, Toby Jones, Matt Lucas and many more, interspersed by music performances. Exquisite!

While you wait for the next one, visit the Letters Live archive.

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How to dupe Silicone Valley

The court case of Elizabeth Holmes of health-care start-up Theranos is in the news these days. If you’re curious about the whole story, I highly recommend Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, investigative journalist at The Wall Street, who exposed Holmes’ fraud. Addictive reading! Read our review here.

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Can I tempt you with a historical fiction novel?

I feel it’s time to speak up for historical fiction which, in my opinion, has an undeservedly bad reputation. True, there are some pretty trashy ones out there but there are also quite a few stunningly good ones. Besides being well-written and with an interesting storyline, a good historical novel takes you to a different time and place, perhaps one you didn’t know much about, and leaves you simultaneously entertained and a wiser person. We’ve reviewed quite a few on this blog which you now can find on the blog under ‘Reviews’ in the main menu.

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Meet our guest reviewer Agnes

Welcome to our guest reviewer Agnes who’s about to embark on her A-level studies in English. Agnes is passionate about reading and, despite her young age, has read more books than most people do in a lifetime. Her first reviews are of two modern classics, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, incidentally two books I very much enjoyed myself.

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