Features

June's book reviews

More great books to look out for, reviewed by Simon Evans

Love reading? Simon Evans can suggest some books for you. There's something for everyone in this month's round up. 

Orwell: The New Life (Constable, £30) is a greatly expanded and updated edition of DJ Taylor’s definitive biography of the great novelist and essayist George Orwell, drawing on recently discovered letters and interviews, and Orwell’s The Road To Wigan Pier is an important reference point for Stuart Maconie in his new book The Full English (HarperNorth, £20), that and JB Priestley’s English Journey, as the writer and broadcaster sets out on a journey across the country to discover what it means to be English in today’s world…

The second volume of former Scottish international footballer Pat Nevin’s memoirs, Football and How to Survive It (Monoray, £22), finds Pat playing some of the best football of his career at lowly Tranmere and Kilmarnock, and with The Ashes under way, esteemed cricket writer Gideon Haigh examines the enduring appeal of the historic rivalry between England and Australia in On The Ashes (Grove Press, £22)…

In No Pie, No Priest (Simon and Schuster, £16.99), Harry Pearson amusingly explores some of the more eccentric folk sports to be found around Britain, from stoolball and quoits to Aunt Sally and Irish road rolling, pastimes that have survived against all the odds, “defying commercial trends, societal change and the intervention of local council health and safety officers, the modern equivalent of the Puritans”, and in 24 Hours (Simon and Schuster, £20), Richard Williams celebrates the colourful 100-year history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of the most revered occasions in the motorsport calendar…

The Price (HQ, £8.99) is the emotionally fraught new thriller from Darren O’Sullivan, every parent’s nightmare comes true in Andrea Mara’s engrossing No One Saw A Thing (Bantam, £14.99), and The Spider, by Lars Kepler (Zaffre, £16.99), is the latest in the Joona Linna series of Scandi detective novels…

The disappearance of a 15-year-old girl leads DI Heather Filson into the murky Glasgow underworld in JD Kirk’s The One That Got Away (Zertex Crime, £9.99), the promise of a new life on a remote island turns into a nightmare in The Sanctuary, by Andrew Hunter Murray (Penguin, £9.99), and Standing In The Shadows (Hodder, £22), is the final, engrossing, novel in the Alan Banks series from Peter Robinson, who died last year…

Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown (Headline, £25) is the first in a new trio of novels from Alison Weir spanning three generations of the Tudors, Winding Stair (Biteback, £20), is the debut novel from MP Jesse Norman, based on the uneasy and uncertain transition from the dying Queen Elizabeth I to king-in-waiting James I, and My Friend, Anne Frank, by Hannah Pick-Goslar (Rider, £20), is a remarkable story of friendship and resilience, telling the tragic story of Anne Frank and her family from the perspective of someone who grew up with Anne and so nearly suffered the same terrible fate…

John Wetton: An Extraordinary Life is a lavish and heartfelt tribute to a rock musician renowned for his work with King Crimson, Roxy Music, Family and Asia, available from (www.johnwettonbook.com), Warner Bros, 100 Years of Storytelling, by Mark A Viera (Running Press, £35), tells the story of the great Hollywood studio, featuring many rare images from the Warner Bros vault, and The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray (Hamish Hamilton, £18.99), is a masterly, thought-provoking and epic tragi-comedy, full of brilliant characters and heart-breaking plot twists…

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