Charlotte Mendelson, Almost English. London: Mantle/Picador, 2013. (Paperback: London: Picador, 2014.) In Charlotte Mendelson’s fourth novel, Almost English, protagonist Marina Farkas leaves her Central-European relations with whom she shares a tiny flat in London behind to embark on her sixth-form year at Combe, a minor boarding school which has recently […] Read more
London 1922. Historical crime fiction. Genteel Mrs Wray and her bored daughter Frances take in lodgers, Lilian and Leonard Barber, because they can no longer manage the upkeep of their London villa without additional financial income. Their routine is disturbed but Frances, who had an affair with a female friend […] Read more
Libraries in the UK have long been under threat, but during the last 5 years of Conservative cuts, the pressure on libraries has increased so much that several hundreds have been closed and a quarter of staff have been laid off. Protests range far and wide – from famous writers […] Read more
There are 31 wolf packs in Germany. There are none in the UK. However, Sarah Hall introduces wolves in her latest novel, The Wolf Border, which are first kept in a closed wolf reserve in the Lake District, and then accidentally-on-purpose released into Scotland, which in the novel has just […] Read more
Lord Weidenfeld, formerly of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, has died, aged 96. One of the last “gentlemen” publishers, his death marks the end of an era. George Weidenfeld was born to middle-class Jewish parents in 1916, in Vienna. He fled Austria during the Nazi period, and established himself in Britain. In […] Read more
Extreme commercialisation, e-publishing, conglomerates, independent bookshops closing, the death of the public library – the list of negative trends in the literary field in Britain is long. However, there is resistance by individuals but also by institutions who and which do not want to bow to the pressures of profit […] Read more
Gesa Steman interviewed former Booker Prize judge Valentine Cunningham on the judging process, the reading load, the ceremony and the opening towards American writers. Read more
