Delighted to see that @sarannmcd.bsky.social’s Justice for Jehanne has been reviewed in @litreview.bsky.social. Read it here: buff.ly/wHEWO7j

Bettina Bildhauer - Sex & Lies in Dijon

Bettina Bildhauer: Sex & Lies in Dijon - Justice for Jehanne: The Tale of a Medieval Survivor by Sara McDougall

buff.ly

Small, useless and endlessly loved, lap dogs have stood for frivolous femininity and the witch’s familiar hidden in her lap. Diane Purkiss wonders what our relationships to these animals say about us. literaryreview.co.uk/fur-from-rea...

Diane Purkiss - Fur from Reasonable

Diane Purkiss: Fur from Reasonable - Yap!: A Short History of Small Dogs by Stephanie Howard-Smith

literaryreview.co.uk

Roy Cohn prosecuted the Rosenbergs, served as Joseph McCarthy’s chief attaché and later counting Donald Trump, mafia dons and Studio 54 regulars among legal clients. @joshglancy.bsky.social considers what, if anything, Cohn actually believed in. literaryreview.co.uk/give-me-the-...

Josh Glancy - Give Me the Judge

Josh Glancy: Give Me the Judge - American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump by Kai Bird with Susan Goldmark

literaryreview.co.uk

William Paget, born a sergeant’s son, rose to become Henry VIII’s indispensable secretary. Peter Marshall asks how far a career built on faithfully smoothing a tyrant’s path can really be called admirable. literaryreview.co.uk/catchpole-to...

Peter Marshall - Catchpole to the King

Peter Marshall: Catchpole to the King - King’s Secretary: William Paget and the Last Years of the Reign of Henry VIII by Andrew Johnston

literaryreview.co.uk

Including also my review of ‘Napoleon and his Marshals’ by Andrew Roberts

Literary Review@litreview.bsky.social · 3w ago

Out now! Literary Review's October 2026 issue, featuring Nicholas Dames on the novel @jfb1066.bsky.social on Napoleon’s marshals John Adamson on the Glorious Revolution @eriklinstrum.bsky.social on confiscation @janetanderson.bsky.social on small dogs and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

“In the Scholar’s Workshop is an essential contribution to the history of knowledge, to be read and used for decades to come," says @litreview.bsky.social. See what else they have to say of Ann Blair's latest book here (£): buff.ly/NRdUCj4

Dmitri Levitin - Peak Dictation

Dmitri Levitin: Peak Dictation - In the Scholar’s Workshop: Hidden Histories of Collaboration and Authorship by Ann Blair

buff.ly

'A splendid work of history, doing a huge amount within its modest 320 pages’ A brilliant @litreview.bsky.social review for @apettegree.bsky.social's new book #TheBookshop, perfect for history buffs and bibliophiles alike! 📚

Joseph Hone - Balancing the Books

Joseph Hone: Balancing the Books - The Bookshop: A History of Bookselling from the Dawn of Print to the 21st Century by Andrew Pettegree

literaryreview.co.uk

I spent my holiday this summer rereading @emilymandel.bsky.social and had a great time doing it. Here’s me on her latest for @litreview.bsky.social literaryreview.co.uk/worlds-apart-2

Out now! Literary Review's October 2026 issue, featuring Nicholas Dames on the novel @jfb1066.bsky.social on Napoleon’s marshals John Adamson on the Glorious Revolution @eriklinstrum.bsky.social on confiscation @janetanderson.bsky.social on small dogs and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

James Marriott believes that we are living through the ‘Disenlightenment’, where reading has been swapped out for reel-watching. Is it really that bleak? @anthonygottlieb.bsky.social weighs in. literaryreview.co.uk/zombie-ipoca...

Anthony Gottlieb - Zombie iPocalypse

Anthony Gottlieb: Zombie iPocalypse - The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society by James Marriott

literaryreview.co.uk

I love this card catalogue so much. Here's a short piece I wrote for @litreview.bsky.social about it (and my great-grandmother's wartime reading diary) earlier this year literaryreview.co.uk/list-of-a-li...

Cambridge University Library@theul.bsky.social · last mo.

In a digital world, our card catalogues remain a much-loved feature of Cambridge University Library. These cabinets contain the records of 20th-century material kept in the tower. Searching under "Best" shows how varied our collections are – from Best Cat Stories to George Best's autobiography!

With over seven hundred novels to her name, Barbara Cartland could count Princess Diana and Colonel Gaddafi among her fans. Wendy Holden makes a case for reconsidering a woman too easily written off as absurd. literaryreview.co.uk/preposterous...

Wendy Holden - Preposterously Pink

Wendy Holden: Preposterously Pink - The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland by Matthew Sweet

literaryreview.co.uk

"She was Venus come down from Mount Olympus." Virginia Verasis, Countess of Castiglione, the Victorian beauty who seduced Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte to get France on the side of Italian independence, is the subject of a brilliant new biography by Benedetta Craveri. @litreview.bsky.social.

Jonathan Keates - Fixer from Florence

Jonathan Keates: Fixer from Florence - La Contessa by Benedetta Craveri (Translated from Italian by Alex Andriesse)

literaryreview.co.uk

Out now! Literary Review's September 2026 issue, featuring Kathryn Hughes on Anita Brookner Richard Vinen on Eric Hobsbawm Andrew Preston on Francis Fukuyama Howard Davies on government debt Wendy Holden on Barbara Cartland and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

Cicero's life was bookended by two momentous events: the fall of Roman Republic and the rise of the future Augustus.  Llewelyn Morgan asks what his letters reveal about this turning point in history.  literaryreview.co.uk/letters-from...

Llewelyn Morgan - Letters from a Cataclysm

Llewelyn Morgan: Letters from a Cataclysm - Orator: The Life of Cicero and the End of the Roman Republic by Catharine Edwards

literaryreview.co.uk

A flurry of recent Plath paraphernalia has come to a head with a new edition of her collected poems. Seamus Perry rejoices at the manifold, mutable woman who emerges to challenge Ted Hughes’s 1981 edition. literaryreview.co.uk/a-bulbous-moon

Seamus Perry - A Bulbous Moon

Seamus Perry: A Bulbous Moon - The Poems of Sylvia Plath by Amanda Golden & Karen V Kukil (eds)

literaryreview.co.uk

Scared of spiders? In her fascinating new book, Arachnomania, Maria Tatar explains why spiders have haunted our stories, fears, and imaginations for centuries. Read Lorraine Daston's review in @litreview.bsky.social: literaryreview.co.uk/web-of-intri...

Lorraine Daston - Web of Intrigue

Lorraine Daston: Web of Intrigue - Arachnomania: Spiders and the Cultural Work They Do for Us by Maria Tatar

literaryreview.co.uk

I wrote about Rachel Cusk’s new novel for the August issue of @litreview.bsky.social literaryreview.co.uk/lights-camer...

“Daniel A. Bell has produced a highly original, thoughtful and often witty account of why these thinkers still matter.” Read Rana Mitter's review of Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters in @litreview.bsky.social: literaryreview.co.uk/precedents-o...

Rana Mitter - Precedents of China

Rana Mitter: Precedents of China - Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future by Daniel A Bell

literaryreview.co.uk

Bowled over by @jfb1066.bsky.social's review of COLLAPSE in this month's @litreview.bsky.social! ‘Original and thought-provoking … Collapse represents an ambitious and scholarly achievement ... it sets a new standard for writing the history of warfare’. A good day! literaryreview.co.uk/peoples-war

Jonathan Boff - People’s War

Jonathan Boff: People’s War - Collapse: A Global History of the Second World War, 1931–1941 by Jonathan Fennell

literaryreview.co.uk

Out now! Literary Review's August 2026 issue, featuring Emma Smith on New World imports Ian Thomson on Mario Vargas Llosa Seamus Perry on Sylvia Plath Hamish de Bretton-Gordon on biological warfare Simon Garfield on pens and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

It's Booker Prize longlist day! Enjoy a selection of our reviews of the longlisted books, free for 24 hours: literaryreview.co.uk/on-the-same-... literaryreview.co.uk/just-project... literaryreview.co.uk/tweed-tragedy literaryreview.co.uk/analyse-this-2 literaryreview.co.uk/call-to-nature

My review of Julia Ebner's new book "The Language of Terrorists" now out in Literary Review. With my past reviews on national security, constitutional and legal topics, find it here literaryreview.co.uk/contributors... (£ - it's a great periodical and I guess they have to live).

Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books

Book reviews by David Anderson

literaryreview.co.uk

In 2022, six commercial scuba-diving instructors found themselves in the heart of global political warfare. Michael Burleigh investigates the Nord Stream explosions and the civilians behind them. literaryreview.co.uk/six-of-the-b...

Michael Burleigh - Six of the Best

Michael Burleigh: Six of the Best - The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions that Shook the World by Bojan Pancevski

literaryreview.co.uk

With an eye for spectacle and a penchant for an actress in a crinoline, Napoleon III has been dismissed as an embarrassing failure. Jonathan Keates wonders if he was a calculating opportunist or a forgotten visionary. literaryreview.co.uk/taller-with-...

Jonathan Keates - Taller with the Charm On

Jonathan Keates: Taller with the Charm On - The People’s Emperor: The Unlikely Rise and Spectacular Fall of Napoleon III by Edward Shawcross

literaryreview.co.uk

Wrote on Michael Smith’s excellent Strangers on the Shore ( @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social ) for this month’s @litreview.bsky.social — I hope you find a copy and enjoy it as much as I did literaryreview.co.uk/sea-sand-sor...

Christopher Webb - Sea, Sand & Sorrow

Christopher Webb: Sea, Sand & Sorrow - Strangers on the Shore by Michael Smith

literaryreview.co.uk

Hot off the press in the latest @litreview.bsky.social: my review of @twhittermarsh.bsky.social's book on the origins of Christianity and the Age of Augustus. (TLDR: it's well worth a read.)

Out now! Literary Review's July 2026 issue, featuring Richard Carwardine on Abraham Lincoln Levi Roach on Rome and Christianity Jonathan Keates on Napoleon III Stephen Smith on Cuba Michael Burleigh on Nord Stream and much, much more: literaryreview.co.uk

We're very pleased to see Colin Kidd's Twilight of the Dons reviewed in @litreview.bsky.social! This work looks at the rise and shifts of postwar Oxbridge and its influence. Read more here:

William Whyte - Pass the Cherries

William Whyte: Pass the Cherries - Twilight of the Dons: British Intellectuals from World War II to Thatcherism by Colin Kidd

literaryreview.co.uk

George Forster’s role aboard Captain Cook’s Resolution has long been overlooked, concealing the true Enlightenment celebrity he was.   Peter Moore explores how such a well-travelled individual made sense of the world. literaryreview.co.uk/out-of-the-a...

Peter Moore - Out of the Armchair

Peter Moore: Out of the Armchair - The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity by Andrea Wulf

literaryreview.co.uk