Prawn vol-au-vent, anyone?
70s Dinner Party by Anna Pallai (Square Peg, £9.99) If you remember the Smash aliens or the Ready Brek glow then, like me, you'll almost...
The Shogun's Queen
The Shogun's Queen by Lesley Downer (Bantam Press, £16.99) Imagine a country isolated from the rest of the world, threatened by invasion...
Snow
Snow by Marcus Sedgwick (Little Toller Books, £12) In the beginning, when the world began, I like to think it was covered in a thick...
Today Will Be Different
Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £14.99) Today is the being of the rest of Eleanor's life. From now on...
Love Rat returns
Mount! by Jilly Cooper (Transworld, £20) It can't have escaped the notice of Jilly Cooper fans that Rupert Campbell-Black is back! And...
Bedlam
Bedlam: The Asylum And Beyond, The Wellcome Collection, Euston Road, London NW1 2BE Mr X makes cars. Not out of metal, plastic and rubber...
The Naked Muse
The Naked Muse by Kelley Swain (Valley Press, £8.99) In all the years, I've been life drawing, I'm ashamed to say I have never made...
Pedro Paricio - Dreams
I was delighted and honoured when my friend Pedro Paricio invited me to write the catalogue essay for Dreams, his fourth exhibition with...
Present perfect
Ten War Poems, selected and introduced by Andrew Motion (Candlestick Press, £4.95) I love this idea, in fact long before this little...
Fire and Fountains
A Death At Fountains Abbey by Antonia Hodgson (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99) After escaping the confines of the Marshalsea prison, and...
