Review of reviews: Books

by Heather Rose (£20, HB, John Murray) Set in the wild, untamed beauty of 1840s Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), this sweeping historical novel follows Caroline, a courageous and determined woman carving

Our books editor Zoe West’s favourite picks for the month

Island life. And death...

I like the slow-quick-slow burn of early spring, with the leaves unfurling slowly but surely. Some plants are decidedly cautious; whitebeams and catalpa won’t show themselves for weeks, while impatien

Judy Blume’s Superfudge was in our tiny school library, and I wolfed it down at the age of eight. From then, I was side-by-side with all of Judy’s kids, right the way up to 17-year-old Katherine in Fo