Simon Hoggart
Do I Smell Roses?
Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters
By Jonathan Nossiter
Atlantic Books 262pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
All wine writers face the same problem: how on earth do you describe the stuff? There is the approach rapturous: ‘do I smell roses? Can I detect white truffles? Cedar, lavender, slate and an ebullient dash of lychees …’. There is the approach over-the-top. I once saw a wine plugged at Majestic as having ‘notes of cinnamon and vanilla, with an undertone of Nivea crème’. There are writers who regard – and I am not making this up – ‘cat’s pee’ as a perfectly useful description of an element in a wine’s taste.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'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