Sarah Bradford
Diamond in the Rough
Madam, Where Are Your Mangoes? An Episodic Memoir
By Desmond de Silva
Quartet Books 304pp £25
Anyone who thinks lawyers are boring should read this book. Desmond de Silva has outfought, outwitted, outdined and outdrunk everyone, from warlords, criminal dictators, Hollywood stars and top footballers to major political figures and serial murderers. It reads like a real-life thriller.
In his foreword Julian Fellowes, who has known de Silva for thirty years, recounts how his friend, as the first British QC to be appointed chief prosecutor at a case before an international war crimes tribunal, succeeded in bringing to justice Charles Taylor, the notoriously corrupt president of
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It wasn’t until 1825 that Pepys’s diary became available for the first time. How it was eventually decrypted and published is a story of subterfuge and duplicity.
Kate Loveman tells the tale.
Kate Loveman - Publishing Pepys
Kate Loveman: Publishing Pepys
literaryreview.co.uk
Arthur Christopher Benson was a pillar of the Edwardian establishment. He was supremely well connected. As his newly published diaries reveal, he was also riotously indiscreet.
Piers Brendon compares Benson’s journals to others from the 20th century.
Piers Brendon - Land of Dopes & Tories
Piers Brendon: Land of Dopes & Tories - The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson by Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd)
literaryreview.co.uk
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk