ALISTAIR FINDLAY recommends the simple cadence, common prose, free verse, and descriptive power of a new collection by Julie McNeill
The incubator of popular nationalism
MARTIN HALL relishes a meticulous, groundbreaking and erudite history of Serbia 1804-1941
MURDER FORETOLD: Alleged Serbian partisans are being summarily executed by hanging in Krusevac with Austrian soldiers posing for the photographer on September 15 1914
[Public Domain]
FRANK McCAULEY gets Laid
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about a two-handed theatrical homage to jazz’s most mercurial musician
ANDY HEDGECOCK is enthralled by a collection of South Korean ghost stories where human behaviour is as chilling as any spectral activity
DAVID YEARSLEY examines the soundtrack and filmic predecessors of the execrable Melania
SIMON PARSONS is charmed by a hilarious tender show that will open the eyes to the delights and possibilities of puppetry
SCOTT ALSWORTH suggests that video games have a lot to learn the rich tradition of Marxist theatre
Serbia: A Modern History
Marko Attila Hoare
Hurst, £65
THERE are certain cliches that are wise to avoid when reviewing a book, but then along comes a work that tempts you down that well-trodden path. The cliche in question is “exhaustive,” an epithet which Marko Hoare’s meticulous, groundbreaking and erudite Serbia: A Modern History thoroughly deserves.
An exhaustive book would normally demand an exhaustive review, but there is so much to say about the work that general remarks allied to a concentration on a couple of well-known periods might serve the reader better.
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