Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...

Review of reviews: Books

A letter, a book and two paintings by Tracey Emin; right, Ruth Fairlight’s copy of The Colossus Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe were both in their twenties when they met in a bookshop in Nottingham.

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

Best books… Ian Leslie The author and journalist ...

“There must have been a conspiracy,” says the novelist William Boyd, after describing John F Kennedy’s assassination to me. He cites the usual clues—the film shot by Abraham Zapruder, the entry wounds