Dominic Sandbrook

Soaked in 007

The Man Who Saved Britain

By

Picador 293pp £14.99 order from our bookshop

Thanks to Marcel Proust, the unassuming madeleine cake has become an indelible symbol of memory and loss. But in the opening paragraphs of this terrific book, Simon Winder gives us an appropriately British alternative: the jumbo bar of Old Jamaica. He remembers eating this splendidly bizarre treat of the 1970s, filled with rum essence and raisins, at one of the key moments in his cultural life – a screening of Live and Let Die at the Tunbridge Wells Odeon.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'Half-way through The Conquest of Water I felt as if I had been subjected to the literary equivalent of excessive c… ,
    • 'Volume five, then, but still no end in sight. Sandbrook is clearly enjoying himself so much he can’t bear the seri… ,
    • 'By the end of the book something so weighty, stylish and impressive has been built up that one feels far nearer to… ,
    • 'Her ensuing psychotic episode is described so convincingly ... that the reader will wonder if Dobrakovová did not… ,
    • 'The perspectives complement and contest one another, amounting to a glorious, atmospheric set of ventriloquisms.'… ,
    • RT : I reviewed The Testaments for . I will not be taking any questions at this time. ,
    • 'The Testaments is, first and foremost, a manual of resistance ... a type of resistance that is organised, articula… ,
    Follow Us