Already known to many as the author of the superb black comedy Death and the Penguin and others, Kurkov - a Russian-born Ukrainian - has recently been a tireless commentator on the Russian i... read more
Kojeve's essay on the creation of beauty in his uncle's paintings: through abstraction rather than representation. This slim volume includes some letters between Kandinsky and his philosophe... read more
A merry retelling of Mitford's The Pursuit of Love set in contemporary Norfolk. Of course it is sacrilege to tamper with Mitford's original, but Knight of all people might just pull it off. ... read more
Louis-Antoine de Bougainville and Pierre Magnol to Sir David Attenborough, via Lady Gaga... The author is, amongst other roles, the president of the Linnaean Society.
The fragmented recollections of a handful of survivors of the earthquake that struck the northern Friuli in 1976. Their tiny village high in the Julian Alps, beneath the immense karstic mass... read more
Drawing on the Kon-Tiki Museum archive in Oslo and illustrated with many of Heyerdahl's photographs, this is published on the 75th anniversary of the Norwegian explorer's astonishing and per... read more
A novel about the harrowing life of the great Russian poetess. She was involved with both Pasternak and Rilke; her daughter died in the Moscow famine; her husband was executed; and she herse... read more
The third outing for Persis Wadia in the 'Malabar House' series, in post-independence Bombay: an unknown European has been found frozen in Dehra Dun, and there are new murders on his doorste... read more
A broad survey that considers the roles of individual leaders in C20th European history. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini of coures, but also Tito, Adenauer, Thatcher, Kohl, Gorbachev and others... read more
A neglected Irish girl is fostered out to her mother's sister for the summer in this perfect, understated story. Almost too short even to be called a novella. Keegan is short-listed for this... read more
The Great Game has not changed though the players have: Keay looks at the history of this contested and remote area and at those that have roamed its wildernesses.
This fictionalised account of his life was one of the last things Kazantzakis wrote before his death. A vivid picture of his childhood in Crete, still occupied by the Ottoman Turks, develops... read more
We feel that this might be one for our (now ex-)Minister for Brexit Opportunities. Down with wine, garlic, citrus, olive oil and capers and up with turnips and mead!
The life of the black Georgian composer and abolitionist (1729-1780), thrillingly imagined. Born on a slave ship, his owner gave him, as a two-year-old, to three sisters living in Greenwich.... read more
From the Alps to the Adriatic, through Ferrara, Mantova, Parma, Cremona, Pavia and Turin. Those who read Helena Attlee's recent Lev's Violin will know something of its historical use, but no... read more
A piece of lively entertainment from the former MP, cabinet minister and memoirist. A foreign office chap disappears in Crete without trace - well, almost none - just enough in fact to feed ... read more