Francis King
Haunted by the Master
A Jealous Ghost
By A N Wilson
Hutchinson 186pp £12.99
As its title, A Jealous Ghost, indicates, haunting is the subject of this tense, terse novel. Only a few of us are convinced that we have been haunted by ghosts of the dead. But all of us are constantly haunted by lost loves, cruelties either inflicted or endured, and resigned or still restless yearnings for what we know can never be.
A N Wilson’s protagonist, Sally, a young American through whose disturbed sensibility the novel’s whole story is related, is haunted in both these ways. On the one hand, she persuades herself that the baleful ghost of the dead wife of the man with whom, on sight, she has fallen in
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The Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky, who died yesterday, reviewed many books on Russia & spying for our pages. As he lived under threat of assassination, books had to be sent to him under ever-changing pseudonyms. Here are a selection of his pieces:
Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books
Book reviews by Oleg Gordievsky
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The Soviet Union might seem the last place that the art duo Gilbert & George would achieve success. Yet as the communist regime collapsed, that’s precisely what happened.
@StephenSmithWDS wonders how two East End gadflies infiltrated the Eastern Bloc.
Stephen Smith - From Russia with Lucre
Stephen Smith: From Russia with Lucre - Gilbert & George and the Communists by James Birch
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The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945 has long been regarded as a historical watershed – but did it mark the start of a new era or the culmination of longer-term trends?
Philip Snow examines the question.
Philip Snow - Death from the Clouds
Philip Snow: Death from the Clouds - Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan by Richard Overy
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