contents
may 2018 • issue 464
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • David Gelber Editorial Assistant Paloma van Tol Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Marketing Manager Katherine Bogden Bayard Founding Editor Dr Anne Smith Cover Illustration Chris Riddell
The Literary Review, incorporating Quarto, is published monthly from: 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Fax: 020 7734 1844 • ISSN 0144 4360 © 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 All advertising enquiries to: Terry Finnegan, Literary Review, 44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW • Tel: 020 7437 9392 Printed in the United Kingdom by: Henry Ling Ltd, at the Dorset Press, Dorchester DT1 1HD • Tel: 01305 251 066 Distributed to newsagents worldwide by: Seymour Distribution Ltd • Tel: 0207 429 4000 Distributed to bookshops by: Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN • Tel: 020 8986 4854 Subscriptions: subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk Editorial: editorial@literaryreview.co.uk www.literaryreview.co.uk • @lit_review 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.
Literary Review | may 2018 2
diary 5 Peter Moore
nuclear age 6 Michael Burleigh
1983: The World at the Brink Taylor Downing 7 Tobie Mathew
Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy Serhii Plokhy
history 10 Ambrogio A Caiani
Napoleon: Volume 2 – The Spirit of the Age, 1805–1810 Michael Broers • Napoleon: Passion, Death & Resurrection, 1815–1840 Philip Dwyer 12 Damian Thompson
The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Rights 1829 Antonia Fraser 13 Jerry White
Trading in War: London’s Maritime World in the Age of Cook & Nelson Margarette Lincoln 14 Keith Lowe
Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges, 1944 Antony Beevor 15 Richard Overy
Persian Gulf Command: A History of the Second World War in Iran & Iraq Ashley Jackson
art 17 Susan Owens
Still Life Before Still Life David Ekserdjian 18 Laura Freeman
The Lives of the Surrealists Desmond Morris 20 Michael Peppiatt
Modernists & Mavericks: Bacon, Freud, Hockney & the London Painters Martin Gayford
biography & memoir 21 Piers Brendon
Rebel Prince: The Power, Passion & Defiance of Prince Charles Tom Bower 22 Wendy Moore
The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story Christie Watson 23 John Burnside
The Recovering: Intoxication & Its Aftermath Leslie Jamison
