Book Choice

This happy hour: Andrew Marjoribanks, Wordsworth Books, finds fine reads for fine minds, while we raise our glasses to two connoisseusr du vin – the great and glorious John Platter on his new book 'My Kind of Wine', and Caro Feely who tells of the Feely family’s ultimately successful venture into a French vineyard in 'Grape Expectations' and 'Saving Our Skins'. Peter Soal finds provocation and stimulation in Ferrial Haffajee’s 'What if There Were no Whites in South Africa?' while Philip Todres finds a new monograph Sue Williamson – 'Life and Work' edited by Mark Gevisser a seriously handsome overview of Sue’s work. In 'The Secret Chord' by Geraldine Brooks, Cindy Moritz finds a biblical King David ecstatic, visceral and virile. Beverley Roos Muller checks Churchillian financial facts and figures in 'No More Champagne – Churchill and his money' by David Lough. RC Sturgis writes rivetingly and revealingly on 'The Mammals that Moved Mankind – A History of the Beasts of Burden'. If we've time, Jon Geidt reviews D

"This happy hour Andrew Marjoribanks, Wordsworth Books picks perfect summer reading, fiction and non-fiction. Lynda Gilfillan, down-the-line from down under reviews 'Flame in the Snow – The Love Letters of Andre Brink & Ingrid Jonker', of which she, Lynda, was the copy-editor for the English translation. Cindy Moritz gives us good reason to read Anne Tyler’s gentle unwinding of 'A Spool of Blue Thread' with its deceptively small details of ordinary family life. Peter Soal wonders, with Ferial Haffajee and with some alarm 'What if there were no whites in South Africa?'. Beverley Roos Muller spies revelations in 'John le Carre – the biography by Adam Sisman', and Mike Fitzjames takes the thriller genre further with three cracking crime novels. Phillippa Cheifitz keeps her cool - and suggests we keep ours – with 'Ice Kitchen: 50 Lolly Recipes' by Cesar and Nadia Roden. Finally Vanessa Levenstein reviews Santa Montefiore’s 'Songs of Love and War', an epic romance with strong archetypal themes of land, love an