HISTORICAL THE NIGHT SHIP by Jess Kidd (Canongate £16.99, 384pp) Jess Kidd’s fabulous fourth book sets sail in 1629, aboard the doomed Dutch ship, the Batavia Jess Kidd’s fabulous fourth book sets sail in 1629, aboard the doomed Dutch ship, the Batavia. On board are a crew of malcontented sailors, rich and poor passengers, and nine-year-old […]

WHAT BOOK would novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz take to a desert island? Novelist and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz is reading Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge He would take The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich to a desert island with him  Anthony says L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between was a hugely important book to him …are you reading now?  For […]

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Jess Kidd takes the known facts of the Batavia’s historical voyage of 1629 which resulted […]

LITERARY FICTION THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOSEF MENGELE by Olivier Guez (Verso £11.99, 224pp) THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JOSEF MENGELE  by Olivier Guez (Verso £11.99, 224pp)  Of all the monsters populating the 20th century, Dr Mengele was surely the most infamous. Known as the Angel of Death, the devout Nazi undertook thousands of unspeakable experiments on twins, […]

PICTURE THIS FORESTS: FROM THE AMAZON RAINFOREST TO THE SIBERIAN TAIGA  (Amber Books £19.99, 224pp)  Some trees, such as douglas firs, often live to 500, sometimes even 1,000 years old, meaning they can outlive entire civilisations Trees are pretty incredible things — there are three trillion of them on the planet (that’s a three with […]

POPULAR OTHER PEOPLE’S HUSBANDS by Elizabeth Noble (Michael Joseph £14.99, 496pp) OTHER PEOPLE’S HUSBANDS  by Elizabeth Noble (Michael Joseph £14.99, 496pp)  Dom and Sarah and Natalie and Kit have been in a group of close friends for 20 years. Glamorous middle-class types, they met at the nursery school gate and their equally glamorous children have […]

LITERARY FICTION VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER by Ned Beauman (Sceptre £20, 304pp) VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER by Ned Beauman (Sceptre £20, 304pp)  If biotech future thrillers about a global extinction crisis, multimodal preservation techniques, corrupt mining corporations and an endangered species of extremely intelligent fish are your bag, you’ll be right at home with Ned Beauman’s latest caper. It’s an […]

The sex scene that lasted TWO WEEKS … just one of the rollicking revelations in a new history of sex, from a cure for impotence to gay penguins, proving there really is nothing new under the duvet A new book reveals many observations about sexual encounters in the wild Naturalist Dr George Murray found homosexual […]

Welcome to Group Text, a monthly column for readers and book clubs about the novels, memoirs and short-story collections that make you want to talk, ask questions and dwell in another world for a little bit longer. ________ Three families who are connected through open adoption embark on an ambitious vacation that goes awry after […]

AGENT JOSEPHINE: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy, by Damien Lewis In the first half of the 20th century, Josephine Baker was one of the most famous women in the world. Born into poverty in St. Louis, she became a star of the Paris stage in the 1920s. Stories of her walking down the Champs-Élysées […]