Book reviewed in this issue

In search of a lost Iraqi tribe
Last Days in Babylon: the story of the Jews of Baghdad
Marina Benjamin
Reviewed by Anthony O’Mahony

Farewell, Babylon: coming of age in Jewish Baghdad
Naim Kattan (trans. Sheila Fischman)
Reviewed by Anthony O’Mahony

Worth and Welfare in the Controversy Over Abortion
C.M. Coope
Reviewed by David Albert Jones

The First Wash of Spring
George Mackay Brown
Reviewed by Maggie Fergusson

Over
Margaret Forster
Reviewed by Julian Margaret Gibbs

Previous weeks reviews

Taste for paradox and wonder
G.K. Chesterton: thinking backward, looking forward
Stephen R.L. Clark
Reviewed by Raymond Edwards

Ed. Kevin L. Morris
Reviewed by Raymond Edwards

Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman
Reviewed by Melanie McDonagh

Helon Habila
Reviewed by David Jowitt

Chris Skidmore
Reviewed by Jonathan Wright

Norman Davies
Reviewed by David Goodall

A Call to liberty, not betrayal
Infidel: my life
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Reviewed by Jane O’Grady

Oliver James
Reviewed by Brendan Walsh

Alan Mould
Reviewed by Keith Mitchell

Ruth Rendell
Reviewed by Anthony Lejeune

Ruth Artmonsky
Reviewed by John Haldane

Leaders against the grain
The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister: three who changed the world
John O’Sullivan
Reviewed by Edward Stourton

Jewish Heritage in England: an architectural guide
Sharman Kadish
Reviewed by Timothy Brittain-Catlin

Gemstone of Paradise: the Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parzival
G. Ronald Murphy SJ
Reviewed by Christopher Howse

The Solitude of Thomas Cave
Georgina Harding
Reviewed by Charlotte Wilkins

Ella: princess, saint and martyr
Christopher Warwick
Reviewed by Konstantin Eggert

What if life goes on and on and on ...
How to Live Forever or Die Trying: on the new immortality
Bryan Appleyard
Reviewed by Anthony Daniels

The Nation’s Mantelpiece: a history of the National Gallery
Jonathan Conlin
Reviewed by John McEwen

The Renaissance Popes: culture, power and the making of the Borgia myth
Gerard Noel
Reviewed by Michael Walsh

Red Princess: a revolutionary life
Sofka Zinovieff
Reviewed by William Charlton

The Brainstorm
Jenny Turner
Reviewed by Kathy Watson

Pope who has baffled his critics
The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and his battle with the modern world
David Gibson
Reviewed by John Wilkins

A Church in Search of Itself: Benedict XVI and the battle for the future
Robert Blair Kaiser
Reviewed by John Wilkins

In the Light of Christ: writings in the Western tradition
Lucy Beckett
Reviewed by Christopher Howse

Early Irish Monasticism: an understanding of its cultural roots
Catherine Thom
Reviewed by Augustine Holmes