Book Reviews for Booklovers from The Booklover
AN HONOURABLE MAN
Gillian Slovo. $37
From the author of the much acclaimed Ice Road and Red Dust, this extraordinary novel, beginning in the Sudan and London of 1884, is set in the tumultuous world of late Victorian England and the shambolic end of the Empire. Gillian Slovo draws on the lives of two real men: Charles Gordon, heroic, dedicated, career army man whose refusal to obey orders helped bring down the Gladstone government, and W.T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, the father of tabloid journalism. Their story is intercut with the tale of a poor, working woman in London. An Honourable Man is a book about destiny and about how wrong men can be; about foreign adventure and heroism doomed to failure; about women struggling to carve a place for themselves in the world; about political compromise and military mayhem.
A DANCER IN WARTIME
Gillian Lynne. $40
Gillian Lynne is one of the world’s pre-eminent choreographers, the ground-breaking creative force behind blockbusters such as Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. But she started her career as a ballerina, and learnt to dance alongside Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer, Beryl Grey and Frederick Ashton during the Second World War. A Dancer in Wartime tells Gillian’s extraordinary story: from Miss Madeleine Sharp’s Ballet Class for Young Ladies in Bromley, to being evacuated with her theatre school to rural Leicestershire; from performing in the West End with doodlebugs falling to touring a devastated Europe, the early years were hard, exciting and dramatic. And then the call came to join Sadler’s Wells…this is a unique memoir about ballet, the war and a peerless group of dancers.
HOCKNEY: The Biography
Christopher Sykes. $43
David Hockney’s career has spanned and epitomised the art movements of the last 50 years. His story is one of precocious achievement at Bradford Art College, the Swinging 60s in London where he befriended many of the iconic cultural figures of the generation, to California and the cool of the swimming pool series of paintings, through the acclaimed set designs for countless operas around the world and major retrospective exhibitions. With unprecedented access to interviews, family and friends, and Hockney’s own notebooks and paintings, Christopher Sykes delivers an honest and revelatory account of the man who many believe to be the most popular living artist in the world today.
We are thrilled to be able to share our Christmas books catalogue with you in this issue of Channel: a huge thanks to the exceptional support from Aidan and his Channel team. We are strongly recommending the featured books... however, space does not allow us to include so many more superb titles now in store. Whether you are looking for good fiction, biographies, cookery, lifestyle, coffee table books for yourself or presents, we look forward to helping you choose, and gift-wrapping your purchases for Christmas.
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