Piers Paul Read
Possibly the Last Word on a Very Important Subject
It is common enough to review a book by a friend, but rare when that friend is not just the author of the book but also the publisher, and not just the publisher of the book but of the magazine in which the review appears. Such is the chutzpah of Naim Attallah – the ebullient and energetic Palestinian who began his life in England as a steeple-jack and has since scaled the spires of literary London.
Women might have been a fiasco: so many of us make fools of ourselves when we sound off about the opposite sex. If it turns out to be something of a triumph this is because Attallah cleverly limits his own contribution to a charming 'Prelude' which in five pages tells
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
'Humans may be the supremely musical animal, but, with or without us, this is a musical planet.'
@MathewJLyons on how music on earth began.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/symphony-of-a-thousand-millennia
'In 2007, German scientists analysed the soil of this lunar landscape and found that 17 per cent of its weight was made up of arsenic. The ground wasn’t poisoned – it was poison.'
http://ow.ly/Ck7j50Er3mu
'Rivalries are intense and dangerous, and someone has to die.'
@NJCooper_crime on new thrillers by @HenryCPorter, @k_faulkner, @annafbailey, @mserinkelly, @JoelDicker, @AlanJParks, @whartonswords and more.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/april-2021-crime-round-up