Once every generation or two, a book comes along that incarnates our collective experience of war.  Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was one such: Heller’s Catch-22 was another, and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five was one more.  To this distinguished list must be added Ben Fountain‘s first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long ...read more →

It was supposed to be “the war that will end war” – according to the misplaced optimism of British author H.G. Wells, and countless others like him who cheerfully expected “our boys” to be home by Christmas 1914.   Involving all the world’s great powers, more than 70 million combatants, and ...read more →

At the age of 43, a few weeks after he secured British citizenship, former KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered: the world’s first victim of polonium 210 poisoning.  The Litvinenko killing revealed that London has quietly become not only the single greatest centre of Russian capital outside Moscow, ...read more →

Evie Blake is the name, Valentina is her scorching new mega-erotic novel – eat your heart out E.L. James, this is an author who can write! Based on the iconic character created by the Italian artist Guido Crepax, Valentina takes a male-created fantasy figure and gives her a real woman’s ...read more →

Having scaled the walls of Faber’s well-manicured garden eleven years ago, Faber chief executive Stephen Page found himself in the broadcast hot-seat, sandwiched between Naked Bookers Philip Jones and Sam Missingham. This show is the first in an occasional series of tête à têtes, devoted to  the illuminati of the ...read more →

He’s Britain’s most controversial politician, and he tells it like it is.  David Cameron? On Botox!  The BBC’s chairman Chris Patten? An old toad who should be abolished! And please don’t get him started on immigration. Wait a minute – this is The Garry Bushell Show!  The place where political ...read more →

What with Benedict Cumberbatch’s radical new television interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, and the recent big-screen Guy Ritchie / Robert Downey / Jude Law action movies, the Baker Street seven per-center is enjoying a major revival of interest. How appropriate, then, that the master scriptwriter of the entire Holmes canon should ...read more →