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Reviews

The Reluctant Mullah, By Sagheer Afzal

A British Muslim seeks love

Inside Reviews

Love Poems, By Carol Ann Duffy

Monday, 8 February 2010

A Valentine strictly for grown-ups

The Education of a British-Protected Child, By Chinua Achebe

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Conrad was racist says African literature's elder statesman, but the legacy of colonialism isn't all bad

From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy, By Kenan Malik (Rated 4/ 5 )

Sunday, 7 February 2010

When Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, he didn't want only the author of The Satanic Verses killed – he pronounced that: "All those involved in its publication who were aware of its contents are sentenced to death." Even this wasn't cause enough for the then Conservative government to denounce the fatwa. Instead, from Geoffrey Howe to William Waldegrave to Margaret Thatcher herself, statements of sympathy were proffered towards those who may have felt that their religious sensibilities had been offended.

Generosity, By Richard Powers

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Can excessive happiness really be catching?

Their Finest Hour and a Half, By Lissa Evans (Rated 4/ 5 )

Sunday, 7 February 2010

I defy anyone not to fall for Lissa Evans' smart, funny, ingenious, revealing tale of London life during the Second World War. Catrin is the girlfriend – posing as a wife – of self-centred war artist Ellis Cole, and working as a copywriter at a small advertising agency when the Ministry of Information asks for her help with the scripts for domestic propaganda films (girls working extra hours with a cheer, mums doing exciting things with swedes, and so on). Has-been actor Ambrose Hilliard has been drafted in to star, and lonely spinster seamstress Eleanor Beadmore helps with costumes. All three find that the war changes them and their relationships with those closest to them – with amusing and touching consequences.

The Lieutenant, By Kate Grenville (Rated 4/ 5 )

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Kate Grenville's latest novel, about a young 18th-century English astronomer who is among the first settlers and soldiers to arrive in New South Wales, is historical fiction elevated into the category of "literary fiction", not so much by its research as by its psychological truth. Historical writers know that their readers demand a certain level of information: we want to learn about times different from our own, and it's not so much recognition that we crave in our ancestors as a sense of their difference.

Satyricon, By Petronius trs Andrew Brown (Rated 3/ 5 )

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Classics enthusiasts may hate me for saying so but, astonishingly ancient surviving fragment of a text though it is, a little of the ribaldry in Petronius's Satyricon goes a very long way.

The Thirties: An Intimate History, By Juliet Gardiner

Sunday, 7 February 2010

This picture of Britain in the decade before the war is full of detail. But what does it all mean?

The Pregnant Widow, By Martin Amis

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Has the sexual revolution ever seemed so boring?

The Wilderness, By Samantha Harvey (Rated 3/ 5 )

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Samantha Harvey is an extremely gifted writer, but, if anything, her debut novel is a little too carefully written; each word a little too thought over.

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