Frederick Taylor
City At War
Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital, 1939–45
By Roger Moorhouse
The Bodley Head 432pp £25 order from our bookshop
While living in Sydney during the 1980s, I found myself asking an Australian acquaintance why, in a supposedly irreverent land originally settled by convicts, the government – and especially the educational system in New South Wales, within whose confines my son was less than happy – seemed surprisingly authoritarian. Ah, he answered with a grin. Yes, of course there had been all those criminals and rebels. But, you see, there had also been the jailers. And their descendants were still here as well.
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'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
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Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad