Jim Lee will be speaking about Life in B&W at Waterstones, Piccadilly next Wednesday. The evening will start at 7pm and is free. Please reserve a place by emailing piccadilly@waterstones.com

Get your copy of Life in B&W by Jim Lee today! 

‘It’s that strong variety and exoticism that sold me on the book’

The Bookbag reviews When Mr Putin Stole My Painting by Joannah Yacoub. You can get your copy of the book here today!

‘At the start of the series, Massie appeared to pay homage to Simenon in both style and manner. As the books have progressed, however, his tone has grown richer. Descriptions remain minimal and nothing is spelled out that cannot be better hinted at. Sorrowful but never cynical, this is the work of a writer who has allowed history to be laid down for many years, before uncorking it. But what flows onto the page is mellow only in the sense that it is knowing and wise. There are precious few victors by the end of this novel. As Allan Massie makes clear, war destroys everyone, to a greater or lesser degree’

The Scottish Herald reviews End Games in Bordeaux by Allan Massie. Get your copy of the book here today!

‘This is not a book designed to please long-term followers and anyone hoping for sly, grown-up references will find none. This is as innocent a children’s book as any and a neat little stocking filler for any little boy (or girl, sorry Brian) with a budding car obsession’

The Independent reviews The Man Who Built the Best Car in the World by Brian Sewell. Get your copy here today!

The Evening Standard also published a feature on the memorial service held for Brian Sewell, which can be read here.

There was also a piece in the Evening Standard Londoner’s Diary.

On Tuesday, The Evening Standard held a memorial service for Brian Sewell at St James’s, Piccadilly. It was a beautiful service with a wonderful eulogy by Sir Max Hastings. The Guardian has quoted him as follows:

‘He possessed the gifts of all successful polemicists: conceit, passion, wit, literary elegance, an instinctive suspicion of, and disdain for, power and wealth…When I left the paper, he gave me a Victorian watercolour which makes me think of him whenever I pass it on the wall. This was accompanied by a note which was terse, witty and generous. Here was one of a host of kindnesses which explain why Brian was so much appreciated by many of those who lived and worked with him, as he was also by millions of readers, who saw in his view of art a vigorous, sometimes ferocious, common sense, alongside a wondrous eye for beauty, which made him the most famous as well as the most controversial art critic of his time’

Read the full Guardian article here and get your copy of The Man Who Built the Best Car in the World by Brian Sewell here today.

‘Prolific journalist and author Liz Hodgkinson’s book is remarkably timely. FROM A GIRL TO A MAN coincides with the current heated debate about transsexuals, a debate fuelled by Germaine Greer’s recent controversial observation that male-to-female sex-change people are a “ghastly travesty” and not real women. Hodgkinson’s sympathetic and moving biography of Michael Dillon (born Laura in 1915), who was to become the world’s first biological female to male man, will open the eyes and minds of those who are unfamiliar with transgenderism. Hodgkinson describes the mental torment and bewilderment that Dillon endured through childhood and adolescence, and later at Oxford. From birth, Dillon wanted to be a boy, felt like a boy and behaved in a boyish way. At Oxford, Dillon – five foot nine, Eton-cropped, huge hands, pipe-smoking and enjoying rowing and boxing lessons – suffered agonies of isolation, ridicule and personal ignorance. Hormones and a double mastectomy came after Oxford and in 1945 Dillon contacted the famous plastic surgeon, Harold Gillies, who was prepared to operate in secret. He had perfected the “tube pedicle technique” in which the patient’s own flesh is grown on his body and transferred elsewhere on the body. Between 1945-1949 Dillon underwent thirteen excruciatingly painful operations. His life thereafter was both extraordinary and tragic. Hodgkinson’s non-sensationalist book reminds us that Dillon’s situation was far from unique. It makes clear how soul-destroying and painful it is for a person to be labelled “a freak” and informs us of the tribulations experienced by those born with indeterminate gender’

Quartet author Val Hennessy reviews From a Girl to a Man: How Laura Became Michael by Liz Hodgkinson. Get your copy of From a Girl to a Man: How Laura Became Michael today!

‘I was at Eton between 1962 and 1966 at a time when the fagging culture was rife and the culture of prefects of 17 or 18 abusing boys aged 13 and 14 was endemic. It was a problem at many public schools’

Robert Montagu reveals to the Sunday Express that he once stopped a boy from hurling himself out a window after being raped by older pupils in Eton. In his memoir A Humour of Love, Robert describes the abuse suffered at the hands of his father. Read the full Express article here. A Humour of Love by Robert Montagu is available now – get your copy here today!

‘Veteran publisher Terry Maher, in a new set of memoirs, discloses that his Cockney chauffeur once asked him if he wanted a business rival bumped off — or at least biffed about a bit…’

Sebastian Shakespeare writes about Terry Maher’s forthcoming memoir One of Lowry’s Children in today’s Daily Mail diary. You can read the full article here. One of Lowry’s Children by Terry Maher coming soon…

Listen to Liz Hodgkinson discuss From a Girl to a Man: How Laura Became Michael and the C4 documentary on Roberta Cowell and Michael Dillon on BBC Oxford. Listen to the show here and get your copy of the book here today.

‘The Sex Change Spitfire Ace’ documentary on Roberta Cowell and Michael Dillon was aired on Channel 4 and is available to watch here. To coincide with the showing, Liz Hodgkinson wrote articles for The Telegraph, The Mirror and the story was also covered in the Daily Mail.

To get the whole story of the world’s first female-to-male transgender, get your copy of From a Girl to a Man: How Laura Became Michael by Liz Hodgkinson here.

‘the completed quartet is a stunning exploration of the morally murky reality of life in wartime France’

The Times reviews End Games in Bordeaux by Allan Massie. Get your copy of the book here today.