Julia Jackson
Julia Jackson is the assistant manager of Readings Carlton
Review — 2 Aug 2020
The Ratline by Philippe Sands
The good news for 2020 is that Philippe Sands has finally written a follow-up to his enormously successful Baillie Gifford Prizewinning book, East West Street! Didn’t read that one…
Review — 23 Feb 2020
We Were Never Friends by Margaret Bearman
I approached this book curiously, thinking, ‘Why George Coates?’ The George Coates I know of was a distinguished war artist, who worked in London and Paris, where he met, and…
Review — 23 Feb 2020
The Salt Madonna by Catherine Noske
On the tiny fictional island of Chesil, something is not right. The presence of Mulvey, the overbearing magnate at the top of the hill, looms over the dwindling community, increasingly…
Review — 19 Aug 2019
The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
Given the dastardly activities of some of our massive corporations of today, the antics containedwithin William Dalrymple’s latest offering shouldn’t really come as a huge shock to readers. I say…
Review — 22 Jul 2019
Nobber by Oisín Fagan
The year is 1348, and it’s a deadly one. Quite literally. As with pretty much everywhere else, thePlague (or Black Death) has ravaged the Irish landscape, decimating the population. The…
Review — 22 Apr 2019
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
In this unusual, yet confidently written debut, Elizabeth Macneal transports the reader to London, 1851. The London of Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and Wilkie Collins, where the finishing touches…
Review — 25 Feb 2019
From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage by Judith Brett
Judith Brett’s latest offering, hot on the heels of her bestselling (and award-winning) biography of Alfred Deakin, is a tightly written history of Australia’s electoral system. Moreover, it reads like…
Review — 22 Oct 2018
The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams
Adapted and greatly expanded from her 2013 New Yorker article ‘Bones of Contention’, Paige Williams delves again, more deeply, into the heady and complex world of ‘commercial palaeontology’ and its…
Review — 27 Aug 2013
A Spy in the Archives by Sheila Fitzpatrick
A Spy in the Archives, which began life as an essay in the London Review of Books in 2010, is a memoir rich in history as much as detail…
Review — 22 Apr 2012
Skagboys by Irvine Welsh
1993 was the year in which Irvine Welsh was flung into the bestseller/cult realm with his debut, Trainspotting. Since then, he has continued to riff on ideas of masculinity…