Shirley Jackson can really write. Her prose is elegant - it has one of my favourite final sentences ever* - and her observations acute. She knows how to tell a story. But I found this book a little too elegantly written and a little too acutely observed. Perhaps my disappointment is down to my preconceptions. …
Denial
I bought this book after seeing the film of the same name. They describe the events surrounding a 1996 lawsuit, when historian David Irving accused Deborah Lipstadt, another historian, of libeling him as a Holocaust denier and bigot. Lipstadt won and Irving was discredited. The film shows all this, and well, but it is a …
Pale Rider
There’s a lot of interesting information in this book. (Not least the news that the Spanish Flu didn’t start in Spain; US, UK and French wartime propaganda designed to maintain the morale of troops on the Western Front pointed the finger at a non-combatant.) But somehow it never really comes to life. The author is …
The Only Story
If you’re in your 20s, you probably won’t get this. If you’re in your 30s, you probably won’t want to. When you reach your 40s, it may well resemble a toothache you’d like to ignore but can’t. Over 50, you’ll most likely have amassed enough experience of your own to know that this is simply …
