Harry Mount
Lava Palaver
Vesuvius: The Most Famous Volcano in the World
By Gillian Darley
Profile Books 246pp £15.99 order from our bookshop
This summer, Mount Etna erupted dramatically enough for sunbathers on Sicilian beaches to turn their gaze from each other's bottoms to the smoking cone, at least for a second or two. Still, though, Etna's eruption got minimal news coverage. If Vesuvius erupted, the foreign correspondent pack would be booking themselves on the Roma–Napoli express train prontissimo.
Vesuvius is the ultimate volcano: the first volcano we learn about as children, the brand name that's applied to fireworks and epic films about ancient Rome, the only volcano in mainland Europe. Part of the reason for the volcano's fame is that it only erupts intermittently. It hasn't
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
'"The Last Colony" is, among other things, part of the campaign to shift the British position through political pressure. As with all good propaganda, Sands’s case is based in truth, if not the whole of it.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/empire-strikes-back
'To her enemies she was the alien temptress who led Charles I away from the "true religion" of Protestantism and towards royal absolutism.'
Lucy Hughes-Hallett reviews @LeandadeLisle's 'colourful', 'persuasive' new biography of Henrietta Maria.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/royalist-generalissima
'Empathy is our moral portal gun, and it jams from underuse.'
Don Paterson on Portal 2, catching Covid on the Eurostar, and rereading Ian Hamilton’s 'Against Oblivion'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/portal-agony