An ambitious book that traces the collapse of empires and their ramifications in contemporary Eurasian geopolitics - in particular Iran, China, Turkey and Russia.
She grew up in Chelsea (indeed her father was a John Sandoe customer); she was a deb in 1958. Then she devoted herself to the IRA and became a terrorist.
The range of Blackburn's books testifies to her profound curiosity about the world. This account of her journey (imaginative as well as physical) among the little-known South African people ... read more
Looks at the ways in which artists have perceived, illustrated and used light since the C18th – Turner, Monet, James Turrell, Olafur Elliasson, Tacita Dean, etc.
A rollocking historical novel set in Renaissance Venice: an artist sets his heart on a miraculous new pigment, only to find himself caught up in conspiracies, a love affair, violence, obsess... read more
Against the backdrop of WW2 and its aftermath, a young Italian woman marries and moves to her husband's village in the south. Ginzburg's characteristically limpid prose harbours may details ... read more