MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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A rip-roaring historical romp through the author’s ancestors
The Burning of Washington (and the White House) on August 24 1814, illustration by Paul de Thoyras
[Library of Congress/Public domain]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
The Broken Boy
by Patrick Cockburn
OR Books, £14.53
PATRICK COCKBURN is well-known as a Middle East war correspondent. He was left with a limp after falling victim as a child to the outbreak of polio in Co Cork in 1956.
His 2005 memoir of the epidemic has been republished, and includes a perspective on Covid gleaned from his observations of the spread and treatment of the “Kent variant” from his home in Canterbury.
His account of polio conveys powerfully the sense of panic and fear among parents, and the traumas suffered by children in isolation hospitals under the care of often insensitive and even cruel nursing staff.
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PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson