Book reviewed in this issue

Awaiting the Twelfth Imam
The Persians: ancient, mediaeval and modern Iran
Homa Katouzian
Reviewed by Robert Carver

The Plot: a biography of an English acre
Madeleine Bunting
Reviewed by Ann Wroe

The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham
Selina Hastings
Reviewed by Lucy Lethbridge

Amulet
Roberto Bolaño (trans. Chris Andrews)
Reviewed by Ian Thompson

Against Innocence: Gillian Rose’s reception and gift of faith
Andrew Shanks
Reviewed by Miranda Seymour

Previous weeks reviews

Midsummer Nights
Jeanette Winterson
Reviewed by Sue Gaisford

It ain't necessarily so
The invention of the Jewish people
Shlomo Sand
Reviewed by Emma Klein

Opera for Everybody
Susie Gilbert
Reviewed by Michael White

The Infinities
John Banvile
Reviewed by Susie Feay

Forbidden Fruit: a history of women and books in art
Christiane Inmann
Reviewed by Lynn Roberts

The Devil is a Gentleman: the life and times of Dennis Wheatley
Phil Baker
Reviewed by Michael Barber

Trajectory of a literary dynamo
Charles Dickens
Michael Slater
Reviewed by P J Kavanagh

Keepers of the Keys of Heaven
Roger Collins
Reviewed by Michael Walsh

A History of the Popes
John W O'Malley SJ
Reviewed by Michael Walsh

Magnetic North: notes from the Arctic Circle
Sara Wheeler
Reviewed by Adrian Brewer

Lustrum
Robert Harris
Reviewed by Anthony Lejeune

The Secret History of Georgian London: how the wages of sin shaped the capital
Dan Cruickshank
Reviewed by Timothy Brittain-Catlin

Tormented Hope: nine hypochondriac lives
Brian Dillon
Reviewed by Catherine Nixey

The Rivers of Heaven
Anthony Gardner
Reviewed by Yvone Cassidy

Trotsky: a biography
Robert Service
Reviewed by

Eden to Armageddon: World War I in the Middle East
Roger Ford
Reviewed by David Goodall

Far-off fields of conflict
Wings Over the Desert
Desmond Seward
Reviewed by David Goodall

Drawing Fire: the diary of a Great War soldier and artist
Len Smith
Reviewed by Sue Gaisford

Christ and Evolution: wonder and wisdom
Celia Deane-Drummond
Reviewed by Ursula King

Peace
Richard Bausch
Reviewed by Kathy Watson

Howards End is on the Landing: a year of reading from home
Susan Hill
Reviewed by Catherine Nixey

Shooting star of the Renaissance
Titian: the last days
Mark Hudson
Reviewed by Lynn Roberts

Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the secrets of Brideshead
Paula Byrne
Reviewed by Michael Barber

Conspirator: Lenin in exile
Helen Rappaport
Reviewed by Jonathan Wright

Boyle: between God and science
Michael Hunter
Reviewed by Brian Morton

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