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Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editor David Gelber Assistant Editor Leo Robson Editorial Assistant Zoe Guttenplan Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Print & Circulation Manager Mark Jones Marketing Manager Constance Watson Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Cover Illustration Chris Riddell

The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • ISSN 0144 4360 Tel: 020 7437 9392 • editorial@literaryreview.co.uk letters@literaryreview.co.uk All subscription enquiries and changes of address to: Literary Review Subscriptions, The Maltings, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH • Tel: +44 (0) 1778 395 165 subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 terry@literaryreview.co.uk • david.sturge@btopenworld.com Print by: CPUK Print Publishing Ltd, www.cp-uk.co.uk Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: Seymour Distribution Ltd • Tel: 020 7429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Designed by Cog Design Literary Review is set in Adobe Caslon and Janet. The latter is a digitisation of an engraved typeface designed by the artist and typographer Reynolds Stone, and named after his wife.

2 Literary Review | april 2024

diary Miranda Seymour british isles John Keay

Storm’s Edge: Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney Peter Marshall Richard Vinen

England: Seven Myths That Changed a Country and How to Set Them Straight Tom Baldwin & Marc Stears Malachi O’Doherty

Four Shots in the Night: A True Story of Espionage, Murder and Justice in Northern Ireland Henry Hemming Stakeknife’s Dirty War Richard O’Rawe music Richard Williams

Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool James Kaplan • The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins Sam V H Reese (ed) Jon Savage

Pulp’s This is Hardcore Jane Savidge Deborah Levy

Me and Mr Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders f rom Mars Suzi Ronson history Levi Roach

House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France Justine Firnhaber-Baker Suzannah Lipscomb

The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens Nicola Clark Ben Wilson

Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain Madeleine Pelling Mark Cornwall

Days in Prague: The Runciman Mission and the Race to Save Europe Ann Shukman Stephen Bates

The Undesirables: The Law that Locked Away a Generation Sarah Wise fashion Lucy Moore

Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution Anne Higonnet Sophie Oliver

All the Rage: Pleasure, Pain, Power – Stories f rom the Frontline of Beauty – Virginia Nicholson