contents
october 2021 • issue 501
Editor Nancy Sladek Deputy Editor Tom Fleming Assistant Editors Frank Brinkley • David Gelber Contributing Editors Jonathan Beckman Michael Burleigh • Sara Wheeler • Philip Womack Editorial & Marketing Assistant Michael Delgado Marketing Manager Constance Watson Advertising Manager Terry Finnegan Classified Advertising David Sturge Founding Editor Dr Anne Smith 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.
Literary Review | october 2021 2
diary 1 Philip Hensher
state of the nation 6 Richard Vinen
Black Gold: The History of How Coal Made Britain Jeremy Paxman • The Shadow of the Mine: Coal & the End of Industrial Britain Huw Beynon & Ray Hudson 8 James Blitz
My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion Michel Barnier 9 Anoosh Chakelian
Broken Heartlands: A Journey Through Labour’s Lost England Sebastian Payne
biography & diaries 11 Richard Davenport-Hines
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries – 1938–43 Simon Heffer (ed) 12 Miranda Seymour
Miss Dior: A Story of Courage & Couture Justine Picardie 14 John Gribbin
The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann Ananyo Bhattacharya 15 Martin Vander Weyer
The Contrarian: Peter Thiel & Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power Max Chafkin
foreign parts 16 Owen Bennett-Jones
Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict Sumantra Bose 17 Noonie Minogue
A Thing of Beauty: Travels in Mythical & Modern Greece Peter Fiennes 18 Tim Summers
The Gate to China: A New History of the People’s Republic & Hong Kong Michael Sheridan
crown & sceptre 20 Tim Blanning
George III: The Life & Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch Andrew Roberts 22 Jane Ridley
The Secret Royals: Spying & the Crown, from Victoria to Diana Richard J Aldrich & Rory Cormac 23 Anna Groundwater
Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts Nadine Akkerman
