Monday, 17 February 2025
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Well, bear with me while I get back in my stride - but I will say that this Iranian film is simply gripping and had me on the edge of my seat last night. (Word of warning, it's VERY long!) 5* from me, although it does strain credibility towards the end - but I was so engrossed that didn't bother me at the time.
I'm reading
- Long Live Great Bardfield:The Autobiography of Tirzah Garfield
- Worktown (David Hall)
Exhibitions 2025
- Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism (Royal Academy)
- Lives Less Ordinary, Working-Class Britain Re-seen (Two Temple Place)
- Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour (MK Gallery)
- The Face Magazine: Culture Shift (National Portrait Gallery)
- Leigh Bowery! (Tate Modern)
- Edvard Munch Portraits (National Portrait Gallery)
- Siena, The Rise of Painting 1300-1350 (National Gallery)
- Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious (Dulwich Picture Gallery, second visit)
Theatre 2025
- Ballet Shoes (Olivier)
- Outlying Islands (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- Scottish Ballet: Twice-Born (Sadler's Wells)
- Retrograde (Apollo Theatre)
Films 2025
- Vermiglio
- Mickey 17
- The Penguin Lessons
- Twiggy
- Mr Burton
Books read 2025
- The Old Wives' Tale (Arnold Bennett)
- Tell Me Everything (Elizabeth Strout)
- The English Führer (Rory Clements)
- Strange Meeting (Susan Hill)
- Olga Lies Dreaming (Xochitl Gonzalez)
- After Annie (Anna Quindlen)
- The Clues in the Fjord (Satu Rämö)
- Butter (Asako Yuzuki)
Exhibitions 2024
- Frans Hals (National Gallery)
- The Crown Auction (Bonhams)
- Entangled Pasts, 1768-now (Royal Academy)
- The Glass Heart, Art, Industry & Collaboration (Two Temple Place)
- Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind (Tate Modern)
- Sargent and Fashion (Tate Britain)
- Angelica Kauffman (Royal Academy)
- Pasquarosa: From Muse to Painter (Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art)
- Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In (National Portrait Gallery)
- Angie Lewin, Patterns of Nature (Watts Gallery)
- The Biba Story, 1964-1975 (Fashion and Textile Museum)
- Fashion City (Museum of London Docklands)
- Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider (Tate Modern)
- Shuvinai Ashoona: When I Draw (The Perimeter)
- Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World (MK Gallery)
- Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520-1920 (Tate Britain)
- Sargent and Fashion (revisited)
- Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy)
- Six Wives: The Stories of Henry VIII's Queens (National Portrait Gallery)
- Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection (Christie's)
- In the Eye of the Storm, Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s (Royal Academy)
- Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award 2024 (National Portrait Gallery)
- Edward Bawden & Me (The Higgins, Bedford)
- Grayson Perry: The Vanity of Small Differences (Pitzhanger Manor)
- Michael Craig-Martin (Royal Academy)
- Scottish Art (Portland Gallery)
- Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (National Gallery)
- Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look (National Gallery)
- Francis Bacon: Human Presence (National Portrait Gallery)
- Out Shopping: The Dresses of Marion and Maud Sambourne (1880-1910) (Leighton House)
- Looks Delicious! Exploring Japan's food replica culture (Japan House)
- Lost Gardens of London (Garden Museum)
- Lucienne Day Silk Mosaics, 1975-1993 (Margaret Howell)
- Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2024 (National Portrait Gallery)
- The Private Collection of Mary and Alan Hobart- Pioneers of Modern British and Irish Art (Christie's)
- Radical Modernity: From Bloomsbury to Charleston (Sotheby's)
- The 80s: Photographing Britain (Tate Britain)
- Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet (Tate Modern)
- Tirzah Garwood: Beyond Ravilious (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
Theatre 2024
- Giselle (English National Ballet, Coliseum)
- Cecil Beaton's Diaries (OSO Arts Centre)
- La Strada (Sadler's Wells)
- You Can't Take It With You (Questors)
- Havisham (Questors)
- The Barber of Seville (Coliseum)
- Dear Octopus (Lyttelton)
- Jenufa (Coliseum)
- The Good Father (Riverside Studios)
- Duke Bluebeard's Castle (Coliseum)
- Lettice & Lovage (Ambassadors)
- Carmen (English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells)
- Power of Sail (Menier Chocolate Factory)
- The Glass Menagerie (Rose Theatre, Kingston)
- Nye (Olivier)
- Spirited Away (Coliseum)
- Twelfth Night (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre)
- London Tide (Lyttelton)
- The Secret Garden (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre)
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (Walled Garden, Boston Manor Park)
- The Hot Wing King (Dorfman)
- Madwomen of the West (Riverside Studios)
- The Grapes of Wrath (Lyttelton)
- Pride and Prejudice (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- Death of England: Michael (@SohoPlace)
- The Lightest Element (Hampstead Theatre)
- Our Country's Good (Lyric, Hammersmith)
- Never Let Me Go (Rose Theatre, Kingston)
- La Bohéme (Coliseum)
- Beryl Cook: A Private View (Finborough Theatre)
- Frankenstein (Boston Manor)
- The Buddha of Suburbia (RSC Barbican)
- The Elixir of Love (Coliseum)
- Twelfth Night (Orange Tree Theatre)
- The Pirates of Penzance (Coliseum)
- A Christmas Tale (Boston Manor)
- Lies Where It Falls (Finborough Theatre)
Films 2024
- One Life
- The Boys in the Boat
- The End We Start From
- The Color Purple
- Iron Claw
- All Of Us Strangers
- The Taste of Things
- Wicked Little Letters
- Neruda
- Freud's Last Session
- There's Still Tomorrow
- The Dead Don't Hurt
- Áma Gloria
- Widow Clicquot
- The Commandant's Shadow
- Fly Me to the Moon
- Thelma
- Jackpot
- Kneecap
- Blink Twice
- The Queen of My Dreams
- NT Live: Prima Facie
- My Favourite Cake
- Lee
- Small Things Like These
- Layla
- Paddington in Peru
- Joy
Books read 2024
- The Secret Hours (Mick Herron)
- So Late in the Day (Claire Keegan)
- Black faces, White Faces (Jane Gardam)
- The Fraud (Zadie Smith)
- Black Money (Ross Macdonald)
- Charlotte (David Foenkinos)
- Ways of Life: Jim Ede and the Kettle's Yard Artists (Laura Freeman)
- Last Waltz in Vienna (George Clare)
- The Trees (Percival Everett)
- Evelyn Dunbar, War and Country (Gill Clarke)
- Le Divorce (Diane Johnson)
- Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin (Alan Bennett)
- Afternoon of a Good Woman (Nina Bawden)
- A Man Without a Country (Kurt Vonnegut)
- Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad (Daniel Finkelstein)
- The Ratline (Philippe Sands)
- Old God's Time (Sebastian Barry)
- Bring No Clothes, Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion (Charlie Porter)
- Monsieur Ka (Vesna Goldsworthy)
- This Other Eden (Paul Harding)
- Sheeps' Clothing (Celia Dale)
- The Rachel Incident (Caroline O'Donoghue)
- Such a Fun Age (Kiley Reid)
- In Memoriam (Alice Winn)
- The Winds of Heaven (Monica Dickens)
- Out of the Window (Madeline Linford)
- Come and Get It (Kiley Reid)
- Good Taste (Caroline Scott)
- The Button Box (Lynn Knight)
- The Appointment (Katharina Volckmer)
- High Wages (Dorothy Whipple)
- This is Happiness (Niall Williams)
- Antarctica (Claire Keegan)
- An Everlasting Meal (Tamar Adler)
- Have His Carcase (Dorothy L Sayers)
- The Huntingfield Paintress (Pamela Holmes)
- The Seeker (SG MacLean)
- A Kind Man (Susan Hill)
- The Oaken Heart (Margery Allingham)
- A Glass of Blessings (Barbara Pym)
- Sofia Petrovna (Lydia Chukovskaya)
- The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Giorgio Bassani)
- Second Act (Henry Oliver)
- Crow Lake (Mary Lawson)
- Funny Story (Emily Henry)
- Red Dust (Gillian Slovo)
- Lord Jim at Home (Dinah Brooke)
- Jane Austen the Secret Radical (Helena Kelly)
- Station Eleven (Emily St John Mandel)
- The Franchise Affair (Josephine Tey)
- The Children's Bach (Helen Garner)
- Anna of the Five Towns (Arnold Bennett)
- The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley)
- The Second Sleep (Robert Harris)
- Long Island (Colm Tóibín)
- Someone at a Distance (Dorothy Whipple)
- Precipice (Robert Harris)
Exhibitions 2023
- Kaffe Fassett: The Power of Pattern (Fashion & Textile Museum)
- Spain and the Hispanic World (Royal Academy)
- Chris Killip, retrospective (Photographers' Gallery)
- Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance (V&A)
- Art on Paper since 1960: the Hamish Parker collection (British Museum)
- Artists and Neighbours: The Holland Park Circle (Leighton House)
- Anthony Caro: The Inspiration of Architecture (Pitzhanger Manor)
- Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South (Royal Academy)
- After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art (National Gallery)
- The Rossettis (Tate Britain)
- Emily Patrick (Gallery 8)
- Everyday Stories: Paula Rego 1970s (Casa das Historias Paula Rego)
- Paula Rego and Salette Tavares (Casa das Historias Paula Rego)
- War Games (Imperial War Museum)
- The Paradisical Pictures (The Gilbert & George Centre)
- Styled by Design: Modern Artist Textiles (Gray MCA)
- Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy)
- Capturing the Moment (Tate Modern)
- Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life (Tate Modern)
- Chelsea Physic Garden: Celebrating 350 Years in Paint and Print (Bankside Gallery)
- Andy Warhol: The Textiles (Fashion & Textile Museum)
- Saint Francis of Assisi (National Gallery)
- Yevonde: Life and Colour (National Portrait Gallery)
- Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm (National Portrait Gallery)
- Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Mary Beale: Experimental Secrets (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Japanese Aesthetics of Recycling (Brunei Gallery)
- Brian Clarke: A Great Light (Newport Street Gallery)
- Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto (V&A)
- Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes (South London Gallery)
- Sarah Sze (The Waiting Room, Peckham Rye)
- The Italian Effect (Italian Cultural Institute)
- Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, Exceptional Ceramics (Phillips)
- David Hockney: Drawing from Life (National Portrait Gallery)
- An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (Tate Britain)
- Women in Revolt! (Tate Britain)
- Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize 2023 (National Portrait Gallery)
- Impressionists on paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec (Royal Academy)
- Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed (National Gallery)
- Liotard & The Lavergne Family Breakfast (National Gallery)
Theatre 2023
- Little Dorrit (Questors)
- Phaedra (Lyttelton)
- Charlotte and Theodore (Richmond Theatre)
- The Gut Girls (Questors)
- Home, I'm Darling (Richmond Theatre)
- Quality Street (Richmond Theatre)
- Richard III (Rose Theatre, KIngston)
- Dixon and Daughters (Dorfman)
- The Circle (Orange Tree Theatre)
- Wuthering Heights (Rose Theatre, Kingston)
- Yours Unfaithfully (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- All of It (Royal Court)
- Frank and Percy (Theatre Royal, Windsor)
- The Motive and the Cue (Lyttelton)
- When Winston Went to War with the Wireless (Donmar Warehouse)
- The Wind and the Rain (Finborough Theatre)
- Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Theatre Royal Haymarket)
- After All These Years (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- Spiral (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- The Way Old Friends Do (Criterion Theatre)
- The Effect (Lyttelton)
- Hancock's Half Hour: The Lost Episodes (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- Guys & Dolls (Bridge Theatre)
- Birthright (Finborough Theatre)
- The Father and the Assassin (Olivier)
- Death of England: Closing Time (Dorfman)
- Sheila's Island (Questors)
- Iolanthe (Coliseum)
- La Traviata (Coliseum)
- The Confessions (Lyttelton)
- Albion (Questors)
- Nutcracker (Tuff Nutt Jazz Club, Southbank Centre)
- The Rehearsal (Questors)
- She Stoops to Conquer (Orange Tree Theatre)
- A Christmas Carol (Boston Manor House)
- Infinite Life (Dorfman)
Films 2023
- Empire of Light
- Au Revoir le Bonheur
- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
- Plan 75
- Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition
- A Plein Temps (Full Time)
- No Hard Feelings
- Oppenheimer
- The Innocent
- Wonka
Books read 2023
- The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones (Sean Sexton & Robert Flynn Johnson)
- The Lost Pianos of Siberia (Sophy Roberts)
- Actress (Anne Enright)
- Félicie (Georges Simenon)
- Self-portrait (Celia Paul)
- Four Thousand Weeks (Oliver Burkeman)
- A Ladder to the Sky (John Boyne)
- The Man from Everywhere (Georges Simenon)
- A Touch of Mistletoe (Barbara Comyns)
- Quartet in Autumn (Barbara Pym)
- The Maidens (Alex Michaelides)
- Newhaven-Dieppe (Georges Simenon)
- Letters to Gwen John (Celia Paul)
- Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)
- Foster (Claire Keegan)
- And So Did I (Malachi Whitaker)
- The Two Mrs Abbotts (DE Stevenson)
- Strange Journey (Maud Cairnes)
- Happy-Go-Lucky (David Sedaris)
- Clock Dance (Anne Tyler)
- My Phantoms (Gwendoline Riley)
- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Thurston)
- A Pin to See the Peepshow (F Tennyson Jesse)
- Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (Barbara Demick)
- A Man's Place (Annie Ernaux)
- The Last Green Valley (Mark Sullivan)
- My Father's House (Joseph O'Connor)
- Rag Rugs of Britain and America (Emma Tennant)
- Mary Wollstonecraft (Madeline Linford)
- Standard Deviation (Katherine Heiny)
- The Crossing Places (Elly Griffiths)
- A Visible Man (Edward Enninful)
- Pachinko (Min Jin Lee)
- Larchfield (Polly Clark)
- Trespasses (Louise Kennedy)
- Shout! The True Story of the Beatles (Philip Norman)
- Maud Martha (Gwendolyn Brooks)
- Hag-Seed (Margaret Atwood)
- Best of Friends (Kamila Shamsie)
- Mrs Caliban (Rachel Ingalls)
- The Hired Girl (Laura Amy Schlitz)
- Saplings (Noel Streatfeild)
- Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
- The Trials of Topsy (AP Herbert)
- They (Kay Dick)
- Two Storm Wood (Philip Gray)
- Darling (India Knight)
- I'll Be With You in the Squeezing of a Lemon (Elizabeth David)
- Maigret's Revolver (Georges Simenon)
- The Beautiful Summer (Cesare Pavese)
- The Children Who Lived in a Barn (Eleanor Graham)
- The Street (Ann Petry)
- Get Ready For Battle (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala)
- Carl and Karin Larsson, Creators of the Swedish Style (ed. Michael Snodin and Elisabet Stavenow-Hidemark)
- Earthly Joys (Philippa Gregory)
- Pineapple Street (Jenny Jackson)
- Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan)
- Summerwater (Sarah Moss)
- O Caledonia (Elspeth Barker)
- The Ballad of Peckham Rye (Muriel Spark)
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin)
- Tom Lake (Ann Patchett)
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Tales from the Cafe (Toshikazu Kawaguchi)
- Death at La Fenice (Donna Leon)
- The True Deceiver (Tove Jansson)
- Romantic Comedy (Curtis Sittenfeld)
- The Bookbinder of Jericho (Pip Williams)
- As It Was ...World Without End (Helen Thomas)
Exhibitions 2022
- Francis Bacon: Man and Beast (Royal Academy)
- Body Vessel Clay (Two Temple Place)
- Surrealism Beyond Borders (Tate Modern)
- The Broderers' Exhibition:The Art of Embroidery (Bankside Gallery)
- Whistler's Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan (Royal Academy)
- Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature (V&A)
- Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection (Royal Academy)
- Wild & Cultivated: Fashioning the Rose (Garden Museum)
- Gainsborough's Blue Boy (National Gallery)
- Virtual Veronese (National Gallery)
- Fashioning Masculinities: the Art of Menswear (V&A)
- Walter Sickert (Tate Britain)
- Cornelia Parker (Tate Britain)
- Raphael (National Gallery)
- Lee Miller: Nurses (Fitzrovia Chapel)
- Power & Image: Royal and Aristocratic Tiaras (Sotheby's)
- Power & Image: Royal Portraiture & Iconography (Sotheby's)
- Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy)
- Vision & Virtuosity by Tiffany & Co (Saatchi Gallery)
- Milton Avery, American Colourist (Royal Academy)
- William Kentridge (Royal Academy)
- Cezanne (Tate Modern)
- Re: Imagining Musicals (V&A)
- Making Modernism (Royal Academy)
- Lucian Freud: New Perspectives (National Gallery)
- WInslow Homer: Force of Nature (National Gallery)
Theatre 2022
- Playing Maggie (Riverside Studios)
- Ava : The Secret Conversations (Riverside Studios)
- The Deceiver (Questors)
- Wuthering Heights (Lyttelton)
- Persuasion (Rose Theatre)
- A Thousand Clowns (Theatre Royal, Windsor)
- Scandaltown (Lyric, Hammersmith)
- The Straw Chair (Finborough Theatre)
- The Corn is Green (Lyttelton)
- Bliss (Finborough Theatre)
- Hangmen (Questors)
- Impromptu Shakespeare (Riverside Studios)
- Wildcat's Last Waltz (Riverside Studios)
- A Doll's House, Part 2 (Donmar Warehouse)
- Much Ado About Nothing (Lyttelton)
- Sir John in Love (Holland Park Opera)
- The Two Popes (Rose Theatre, Kingston)
- The Crucible (Olivier)
- Haunting Julia (Questors)
- The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary! (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- As You Like It (@Soho Place)
Films 2022
- Cyrano
- Parallel Mothers
- Death on the Nile
- The Duke
- The Phantom of the Open
- The Worst Person in the World
- The Lost City
- Downton Abbey: A New Era
- Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
- The Railway Children Return
- Eric Ravilious, Drawn to War
- Thirteen Lives
- Don't Worry Darling
- Emily
- Allelujah
- The Son
- Mrs Harris Goes to Paris
- Living
- Bones and All
- Till
- Blue Jean
Books Read 2022
- The Paper Palace (Miranda Cowley Heller)
- The Crown (Robert Lacey)
- Foreign Bodies (Cynthia Ozick)
- Silverview (John le Carré)
- The Promise (Damon Galgut)
- Empty Nest (ed Carol Ann Duffy)
- Happenstance (Carol Shields)
- How Much of These Hills Is Gold (C Pam Zhang)
- My Town (David Gentleman)
- The Slaves of Solitude (Patrick Hamilton)
- The Twyford Code (Janice Hallett)
- The Offing (Benjamin Myers)
- Widowland (CJ Carey)
- The Feast (Margaret Kennedy)
- Tunnel 29 (Helena Merriman)
- Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan)
- The Matrix (Lauren Groff)
- Letters to Camondo (Edmund de Waal)
- Five Strangers (E V Adamson)
- Boneland (Alan Garner)
- Slow Horses (Mick Herron)
- The Owl Service (Alan Garner)
- Latchkey Ladies (Marjorie Grant)
- He Used Thought as a Wife (Tim Key)
- National Treasures: Saving the Nation's Art in WW2 (Caroline Shenton)
- Darkness Falls from the Air (Nigel Balchin)
- Plenty Under the Counter (Kathleen Hewitt)
- The Waters Under the Earth (John Moore)
- Miss Benson's Beetle (Rachel Joyce)
- The Other Americans (Laila Lamani)
- The Plot (Jean Hanff Korelitz)
- The Beloved Girls (Harriet Evans)
- The Language of Food (Annabel Abbs)
- The Night Watchman (Louise Erdrich)
- Free Love (Tessa Hadley)
- Redhead by the Side of the Road (Anne Tyler)
- These Precious Days (Ann Patchett)
- Summer Pudding (Susan Scarlett)
- A Day in Summer (JL Carr)
- What Artists Wear (Charlie Porter)
- Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)
- The Vanishing Half (Brit Bennett)
- Death and the Penguin (Andrey Kurkov)
- Territory of Light (Yuko Tsushima)
- Godmersham Park (Gill Hornby)
- The Year of Miracles (Ella Risbridger)
- Still LIfe (Sarah Winman)
- The Diary of a Provincial Lady (EM Delafield)
- Family Roundabout (Richmal Crompton)
- Good Pop Bad Pop (Jarvis Cocker)
- Mrs Lorimer's Quiet Summer (Molly Clavering)
- Edith and Kim (Charlotte Philby)
- French Braid (Anne Tyler)
- Herland/The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
- I Remember Nothing (Nora Ephron)
- Mrs March (Virginia Feito)
- Small Pleasures (Clare Chambers)
- What She Ate (Laura Shapiro)
- Mrs Osmond (John Banville)
- The Bloater (Rosemary Tonks)
- One Night in Winter (Simon Sebag Montefiore)
- Young Anne (Dorothy Whipple)
- Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton)
- One Afternoon (Sian James)
- The Manningtree Witches (AK Blakemore)
- Act of Oblivion (Robert Harris)
Exhibitions 2021
- Frances Macdonald (Portland Gallery)
- Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution (V&A)
- Hogarth and Europe (Tate Britain)
- Late Constable (Royal Academy)
- Sophie Taeuber-Arp (Tate Modern)
- Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms (Tate Modern)
- Julian Opie (Pitzhanger Manor)
- Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited (National Gallery)
- Charleston, The Bloomsbury Muse (Philip Mould)
- Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy)
- The Picture Library (The Photographers' Gallery)
- Centuries in the Making, An Exhibition of works by Grinling Gibbons (Bonhams)
- Noël Coward: Art & Style (Guildhall Art Gallery)
- Paula Rego (Tate Britain)
- Bags: Inside Out (V&A)
- Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (V&A)
- David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 (Royal Academy)
- Michael Armitage, Paradise Edict (Royal Academy)
- Ken Howard (Portland Gallery)
- Gilbert & George: New Normal Pictures (White Cube)
Theatre 2021
- Trouble in Mind (NT, Dorfman)
- The Seven Pomegranate Seeds (Rose Theatre)
- The Cherry Orchard (Theatre Royal, Windsor)
- Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe)
- Leopards (Rose Theatre)
- This Beautiful Future (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- Oleanna (Arts Theatre)
- Lone Flyer (Jermyn Street Theatre)
- Solstice (English National Ballet/Royal Festival Hall)
- Happy Days (Riverside Studios)
Films 2021
- Operation Mincemeat
- Boxing Day
- King Richard
- Silent Night
- The French Dispatch
- Mothering Sunday
- Belfast
- The Souvenir: Part 2
- Dune
- The Courier
- Free Guy
- Nowhere Special
- The Last Letter from Your Lover
- Tove
- The Father
- In the Heights
- Minari
- Nomadland
Books Read 2021
- A Girl Returned (Donatella di Pietrantonio)
- American Dirt (Jeanine Cummins)
- Spring Cannot be Cancelled (David Hockney, Martin Gayford)
- Oh William (Elizabeth Strout)
- The Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman)
- Tension (EM Delafield)
- Sorrow and Bliss (Meg Mason)
- Starlight (Stella Gibbons)
- Address Unknown (Kathrine Kressmann Taylor)
- A Meal in Winter (Hubert Mingarelli)
- Expiation (Elizabeth von Arnim)
- Piranesi (Susanna Clarke)
- The Silent Traveller in London (Chiang Yee)
- Life Among the Savages (Shirley Jackson)
- Voices in the Evening (Natalia Ginzburg)
- Miss Austen (Gill Hornby)
- A Town Called Solace (Mary Lawson)
- The Island of Missing Trees (Elif Shafak)
- The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (Paula Byrne)
- Taken at the Flood (Agatha Christie)
- Nine Perfect Strangers (Liane Moriarty)
- Family History (Vita Sackville-West)
- Maigret's Mistake (Georges Simenon)
- A Fugue in Time (Rumer Godden)
- Road Ends (Mary Lawson)
- Rodham (Curtis Sittenfeld)
- Adam Bede (George Eliot)
- The Bloomsbury Cookbook (Jans Ondaatje Rolls)
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Toshikazu Kawaguchi)
- Love (Elizabeth von Arnim)
- A City of Bells (Elizabeth Goudge)
- This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (Ann Patchett)
- Agent Sonya (Ben Macintyre)
- Autumn (Ali Smith)
- On the Beach (Nevil Shute)
- Birds of America (Mary McCarthy)
- Some Thoughts on the Common Toad (George Orwell)
- The Little Library Year (Kate Young)
- The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer)
- Ignorance (Michèle Roberts)
- Hons and Rebels (Jessica Mitford)
- The Distant Land of my Father (Bo Caldwell)
- Love in the Blitz: The Greatest Lost Love Letters of the Second World War (Eileen Alexander)
- Where Stands a Wingèd Sentry (Margaret Kennedy)
- The Book of Dust. vol 2: The Secret Commonwealth (Philip Pullman)
- The Blackbirder (Dorothy B Hughes)
- Agent Running in the Field (John le Carré)
- Parallel LIves, Five Victorian Marriages (Phyllis Rose)
- My Dark Vanessa (Kate Elizabeth Russell)
Exhibitions 2020
- Turner's Modern World (Tate Britain)
- Unfinished Business: the Fight for Women's Rights (British Library)
- Bruce Nauman (Tate Modern)
- Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk (V&A)
- Grayson Perry: The MOST Specialest Relationship (Victoria Miro)
- Emily Patrick (Gallery 8)
- Mary Fedden (Portland Gallery)
- Hogarth: London Voices, London Lives (Pitzhanger Gallery)
- Gauguin and the Impressionists (Royal Academy)
- Feast & Fast (Fitzwilliam Museum)
- Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age (National Gallery)
- Titian: Love, Desire, Death (National Gallery)
- Picasso and Paper (Royal Academy)
- Dora Maar (Tate Modern)
- Andy Warhol (Tate Modern)
- Aubrey Beardsley (Tate Britain)
- Unbound, Visionary Women Collecting Textiles (Two Temple Place)
- British Baroque: Power and Illusion (Tate Britain)
- Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi (Somerset House)
- Divine People, The Art of Ambrose McEvoy (Philip Mould)
- Pre-Raphaelite Sisters (NPG)
Theatre 2020
- A Christmas Carol (Bridge Theatre)
- Love Letters (Theatre Royal Haymarket)
- Lloyd George Knew my Father (Theatre Royal, Windsor)
- Beat the Devil: A Covid Monologue (Bridge Theatre)
- The Lady in the Van (Theatre Royal, Windsor)
- Nora: A Doll's House (Young Vic)
- Isadora Now:Triple Bill (Barbican Theatre)
- Alina Cojocaru (Sadler's Wells)
- A Christmas Carol (Old Vic)
Films 2020
- Rebecca
- Supernova
- Parasite
- Simple Women
- Flesh Out (Il Corpo della Sposa)
- Dream Horse
- Emma
- Military Wives
- Little Joe
- The Personal History of David Copperfield
- Queen & Slim
- Yves (All About Yves)
- Bombshell
Books Read 2020
- Tea is so Intoxicating (Mary Essex)
- My Husband Simon (Mollie Panter-Downes)
- My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite)
- Motherwell (Deborah Orr)
- The Dutch House (Ann Patchett)
- Crucible of Fools (MS Power)
- Dinner with Edward (Isabel Vincent)
- The Secrets We Kept (Lara Prescott)
- On Chapel Sands (Laura Cumming)
- The Siege of Krishnapur (JG Farrell)
- Dangerous Ages (Rose Macaulay)
- The Doctor's Wife (Mary Elizabeth Braddon)
- The Other Bennet Sister (Janice Hadlow)
- Milkman (Anna Burns)
- Becoming (Michelle Obama)
- A Lost Lady (Willa Cather)
- The Binding (Bridget Collins)
- The Deepening Stream (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)
- A Certain Justice (PD James)
- The Oppermanns (Lion Feuchtwanger)
- Derek Jarman's Garden
- Drina's Dancing Year (Jean Estoril)
- Ballet for Drina (Jean Estoril)
- An Academic Question (Barbara Pym)
- Cheerfulness Breaks In (Angela Thirkell)
- The Shoreless Sea (Mollie Panter-Downes)
- Brother of the More Famous Jack (Barbara Trapido)
- Crampton Hodnet (Barbara Pym)
- The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (Brian Moore)
- The Man on the Balcony (Sjowall & Wahloo)
- The White Witch (Elizabeth Goudge)
- Fleishman is in Trouble (Taffy Brodesser-Akner)
- Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes (Virginia Nicholson)
- Convenience Store Woman (Sayaka Murata)
- Mrs Gaskell & Me (Nell Stevens)
- The Misses Mallett (EH Young)
- The Rising Tide (Molly Keane)
Exhibitions 2019
- Bridget Riley (Hayward)
- Museum of Architecture's Gingerbread City (Somerset House)
- Antony Gormley (RA)
- Laura Knight RA: A Working Life (RA)
- Olaffur Eliasson: In Real Life (Tate Modern)
- The Lost Dress of Elizabeth I (Hampton Court Palace)
- Posy Simmonds: A Retrospective (House of Illustration)
- What to Look for in the Garden, A Ladybird Books Exhibition (Garden Museum)
- William Blake (Tate Britain)
- Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver (NPG)
- Only Human: Martin Parr (NPG)
- Ivon Hitchens: The Painter in the Woods (Garden Museum)
- Corita Kent: Power Up (House of Illustration)
- Russia, Royalty & The Romanovs (Queen's Gallery)
- Mary Quant (V&A)
- Chihuly: Reflections on Nature (Kew Gardens)
- Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light (National Gallery)
- Anish Kapoor (Pitzhanger Manor)
- Don McCullin (Tate Britain)
- Van Gogh and Britain (Tate Britain)
- John Ruskin, The Power of Seeing (Two Temple Place)
- Mary Fedden (Portland Gallery)
- Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams (V&A)
- Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory (Tate Modern)
Theatre 2019
- Fascinating Aïda (Queen Elizabeth Hall)
- Vassa (Almeida)
- Hansard (Lyttelton)
- A Woman of No Importance (Richmond Theatre)
- The Night Watch (Hexagon Theatre, Reading)
- The Starry Messenger (Wyndham's)
- [Un]leashed (Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's Wells)
- Orpheus Descending (Menier Chocolate Factory)
- Jane Clegg (Finborough Theatre)
- A German Life (Bridge Theatre)
- Avalanche: A Love Story (Barbican Theatre)
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Rose Theatre)
- Wise Children (Richmond Theatre)
- Blood Knot (Orange Tree)
- The American Clock (Old Vic)
- An Evening with Vanessa Redgrave (Rose Theatre)
Films 2019
- Little Women
- The Captive
- So Long, My Son
- Knives Out
- Judy & Punch
- The Wolf's Call (Le Chant du Loup)
- Grâce à Dieu (By the Grace of God)
- The Aeronauts
- Brittany Runs a Marathon
- Sorry We Missed You
- Harriet
- Blackbird
- Hope Gap
- Children of a Lesser God
- Black and Blue
- Greener Grass
- Downton Abbey
- Internal Affairs
- The Farewell
- Sunshine
- Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
- Pain&Glory
- Never Look Away
- Blinded by the Light
- The Current War
- Une Femme Douce
- The Flight (Urojahaj)
- The Souvenir
- The Good Liar
- Late Night
- After the Wedding
- Booksmart
- Memoir of War (La Douleur)
- Aladdin
- The White Crow
- Karl Lagerfeld, A Lonely King
- Wild Rose
- Ray Budd's Phantom of the Opera
- The Goddesses of Food (A la Recherche des Femmes Chefs)
- Fisherman's Friends
- Capernaum
- Midnight in Paris
- Eighth Grade
- Boy Erased
- Green Book
- Alien
- All Is True
- Colette
Books Read 2019
- A Family Romance (Anita Brookner)
- Victory in the KItchen, The Life of Churchill's Cook (Annie Gray)
- Olive, Again (Elizabeth Strout)
- Naming Monsters (Hannah Eaton)
- A Half Baked Idea: How grief, love and cake took me from the courtroom to Le Cordon Bleu (Olivia Potts)
- La Douleur (Marguerite Duras)
- The Hanging Garden (Ian Rankin)
- Other People's Houses (Lore Segal)
- The Devastating Boys (Elizabeth Taylor)
- Rose Under Fire (Elizabeth Wein)
- The Testaments (Margaret Atwood)
- Maigret and the Minister (Georges Simenon)
- Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein)
- Ghost Wall (Sarah Moss)
- Bitter Orange (Claire Fuller)
- Prague Spring (Simon Mawer)
- The Solitary Summer (Elizabeth von Arnim)
- The Tidal Zone (Sarah Moss)
- Circe (Madeline Miller)
- The Glass Cage (Georges Simenon)
- The Greatcoat (Helen Dunmore)
- Great Granny Webster (Caroline Blackwood)
- All Among the Barley (Melissa Harrison)
- Eustace and Hilda (LP Hartley)
- The Sixth Sense (LP Hartley)
- House of Glass (Susan Fletcher)
- The Promise, Love and Loss in Modern ChIna (Xinran)
- The Shrimp and the Anemone (LP Hartley)
- Annelies (David Gillham)
- Spring Magic (DE Stevenson)
- Late in the Day (Tessa Hadley)
- The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris)
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation (Ottessa Moshfegh)
- Treasures of Botanical Art (Shirley Sherwood and Martyn Rix)
- The Tin Can Tree (Anne Tyler)
- Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves (Rachel Malik)
- During the Reign of the Queen of Persia (Joan Chase)
- The Party (Elizabeth Day)
- Small Country (Gaël Faye)
- Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter (Lucinda Hawksley)
- Ladder of Years (Anne Tyler)
- The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton (Kathryn Hughes)
- Queen Victoria's Stalker (Jan Bondeson)
- Everything I Know About Love (Dolly Alderton)
- The Fashion in Shrouds (Margery Allingham)
- A Long Way from Verona (Jane Gardam)
- The Forgiven (Lawrence Osborne)
- Dining with the Durrells (David Shimwell)
- The Poison Bed (EC Fremantle)
- Thrush Green (Miss Read)
- Zennor in Darkness (Helen Dunmore)
- American Wife (Curtis Sittenfeld)
- The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey)
- Melmoth (Sarah Perry)
- Sunstroke and Other Stories (Tessa Hadley)
- Transcription (Kate Atkinson)
- The Tobacconist (Robert Seethaler)
- Normal People (Sally Rooney)
Exhibitions 2018
- Gainsborough's Family (NPG)
- The Museum of Architecture's GIngerbread City (V&A)
- Courtauld Impressionists, From Manet to Cézanne (National Gallery)
- Mantegna and Bellini (National Gallery)
- Edward Burne-Jones (Tate Britain)
- Christian Marclay: The Clock (Tate Modern)
- Anni Albers (Tate Modern)
- Azzedine Alaïa, The Couturier (Design Museum)
- Nature Table (Town House, Spitalfields)
- Enid Marx: Print, Pattern and Popular Art (House of Illustration)
- Edward Bawden (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Flower Fairies, Botanical Magic (Garden Museum)
- Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy)
- The Great Spectacle (Royal Academy)
- Cedric Morris: Artist Plantsman (Garden Museum)
- Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (V&A)
- Landscape: Tacita Dean (Royal Academy)
- Aftermath: Art in the Wake of WW1 (Tate Britain)
- Orla Kiely:A Life in Pattern (Fashion Museum)
- Charles II: Art & Power (Queen's Gallery)
- Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art (Tate Modern)
- Fashioned from Nature (V&A)
- Made in North Korea, Everyday Graphics from the DPRK (House of Illustration)
- Charmed Lives in Greece: Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor (British Museum)
- Monet and Architecture (National Gallery)
- Charles I, King and Collector (Royal Academy)
- Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy (Tate Modern)
- Ocean Liners: Speed and Style (V&A)
- Into the Woods: Trees in Photography (V&A)
- All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a century of painting life (Tate Britain)
- Rhythm & Reaction: The Age of Jazz in Britain (Two Temple Place)
- Andreas Gursky (Hayward Gallery)
- Monochrome: Painting in Black and White (National Gallery)
- Cézanne's Portraits (NPG)
- Tove Jansson (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Helen Allingham (Watts Gallery)
Theatre 2018
- Switzerland (Ambassadors Theatre)
- Pinter Four: Moonlight, Night School (Harold PInter Theatre)
- The Inheritance Pt 2 (Noel Coward Theatre)
- Fire&Fury, Birmingham Royal Ballet (Sadler's Wells)
- Tap Dogs (Peacock)
- The Inheritance Pt 1 (Noel Coward Theatre)
- A Winter's Tale (Shakespeare's Globe)
- Hogarth's Progress: The Taste of the Town (Rose Theatre)
- Hogarth's Progress: The Art of Success (Rose Theatre)
- Consent (Harold Pinter Theatre)
- Imperium II: Dictator (Gielgud)
- Imperium I: Conspirator (Gielgud)
- One for Sorrow (Royal Court)
- Utility (Orange Tree)
- Quiz (Noel Coward Theatre)
- Nightfall (Bridge Theatre)
- Mood Music (Old Vic)
- Instructions for Correct Assembly (Royal Court)
- The Plough and the Stars (Lyric, Hammersmith)
- Fanny and Alexander (Old Vic)
- Curtains (Rose Theatre)
- Picnic at Hanging Rock (Barbican)
- The Captive Queen (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)
- Hedda Gabler (NT touring)
Films 2018
- Stan and Ollie
- The Favourite
- It's a Wonderful Life
- Farewell My Indian Soldier
- Some Like It Hot
- Can You Ever Forgive Me?
- The Little Stranger
- The Wife
- First Man
- White Boy Rick
- A Star is Born
- A Simple Favour
- Cold War
- Crazy Rich Asians
- The Godfather
- American Animals
- C'est la Vie
- Apostasy
- Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
- Vertigo
- Searching
- Hearts Beat Loud
- On Call (La Permanence)
- Puzzle
- The Confession (L'Aveu)
- Leave No Trace
- The Breadwinner
- On Chesil Beach
- Phantom of the Paradise
- Edie
- The Sound of Music
- Lean on Pete
- Same Old Song
- Beast
- Funny Cow
- The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society
- Look Back in Anger
- Grease
- The Rape of Recy Taylor
- Ready Player One
- A Wedding
- Love, Simon
- Finding Your Feet
- A Fantastic Woman
- Makala
- Cézanne et Moi
- Mother, I Love You (Mammu, es Tevi milu)
Books Read 2018
- A Truth Universally Acknowledged:33 reasons why we can't stop reading Jane Austen (ed Susannah Carson)
- Firefly (Henry Porter)
- Paris Echo (Sebastian Faulks)
- Swimming Studies (Leanne Shapton)
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying (George Orwell)
- Police at the Funeral (Margery Allingham)
- A Cook's Tour (Anthony Bourdain)
- Last Stories (William Trevor)
- The New House (Lettice Cooper)
- The Gastronomical Me (MFK Fisher)
- The Prince's Boy (Paul Bailey)
- Journey by Moonlight (Antal Szerb)
- What She Ate (Laura Shapiro)
- Less (Andrew Sean Greer)
- An American Marriage (Tayari Jones)
- The Good Women of China (Xinran)
- Some Hope (Edward St Aubyn)
- The Ghost Writer (Philip Roth)
- A Game of Hide and Seek (Elizabeth Taylor)
- The Dig (John Preston)
- Home Fire (Kamila Shamsie)
- The Only Story (Julian Barnes)
- The Librarian (Salley Vickers)
- The Château (William Maxwell)
- The Friendly Ones (Philip Hensher)
- The FitzOsbornes in Exile (Michell Cooper)
- Tangerine (Christine Mangan)
- Educated (Tara Westover)
- No Place to Lay One's Head (Françoise Frenkel)
- The Voyage Out (Virginia Woolf)
- The Reading Cure, How Books Restored My Appetite (Laura Freeman)
- Night (Elie Wiesel)
- The Dry (Jane Harper)
- Life in the Garden (Penelope Lively)
- Dear Mrs Bird (AJ Pearce)
- MI5 and Me, A Coronet Among the Spooks (Charlotte Bingham)
- Lullaby (Leïla Slimani)
- Bookworm, A Memoir of Childhood Reading (Lucy Mangan)
- Anthony Powell:Dancing to the Music of Time (Hilary Spurling)
- Bad News (Edward St Aubyn)
- Angle of Repose (Wallace Stegner)
- The Lark (E Nesbit)
- The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock (Imogen Hermes Gowar)
- The Nether World (George Gissing)
- A Brief History of Montmaray (Michelle Cooper)
- Grace Notes (Bernard MacLaverty)
- Birdcage Walk (Helen Dunmore)
- Diary of an Ordinary Schoolgirl (Margaret Forster)
- Golden Hill (Francis Spufford)
- The Beast (Alexander Starritt)
- Ravilious & Co, The Pattern of Friendship (Andy Friend)
- A Very British Scandal (John Preston)
- National Provincial (Lettice Cooper)
- Busman's Honeymoon (Dorothy L Sayers)
- The Walworth Beauty (Michèle Roberts)
- A Bunch of Sweet Peas (Henry Donald)
- Strong Poison (Dorothy L Sayers)
- Gaudy Night (Dorothy L Sayers)
- Jacob's Room is Full of Books (Susan Hill)
Exhibitions 2017
- Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic (V&A)
- The Working Artist: The East London Group (Nunnery Gallery)
- Erté, A Celebration (Grosvenor Gallery)
- May Morris, Art and Life (William Morris Gallery)
- Ilya and Emila Kabokov: Not Everyone Will Be Taken into the Future (Tate Modern)
- Modigliani (Tate Modern)
- Red Star Over Russia: A Revolution in Visual Culture, 1905-55 (Tate Modern)
- Poster Girls (London Transport Museum)
- Reflections:Van Eyck & the Pre-Raphaelites (National Gallery)
- Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile, 1870-1904 (Tate Britain)
- Emily Patrick (Gallery 8)
- Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell (National Gallery)
- Tradescant's Orchard (Garden Museum)
- Rachel Whiteread (Tate Britain)
- Ravilious & Co: The Pattern of Friendship (Towner Art Gallery)
- Second Nature: The Art of Charles Tunnicliffe (Royal Academy)
- Matisse in the Studio (Royal Academy)
- Margaret Clarke: An Independent Spirit (National Gallery of Ireland)
- Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (National Gallery of Ireland)
- True to Life: British Realist Painting in the 1920s and 1930s (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art)
- Sargent: The Watercolours (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Canaletto & the Art of Venice (Queen's Gallery)
- Enlightened Princesses (Kensington Palace)
- Diana: Her Fashion Story (Kensington Palace)
- Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion (V&A)
- Giacometti (Tate Modern)
- Josef Frank, Patterns - Furniture - Painting (Fashion Museum)
- Howard Hodgkin:Absent Friends (NPG)
- Vanessa Bell (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s (Royal Academy)
- Australia's Impressionists (National Gallery)
- Paul Nash (Tate Britain)
- David Hockney (Tate Britain)
- Sussex Modernism (Two Temple Place)
- Anthony Green RA: The Life and Death of Miss Dupont (Royal Academy)
- Feeding the 400 (Foundling Museum)
- Opus Anglicanum (V&A)
Films 2017
- Soleil Battant
- Stronger
- God's Own Country
- The Disaster Artist
- Wonder
- The Florida Project
- Aurore (Fifty Springtimes)
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- Call Me By Your Name
- The Party
- Journey's End
- Goodbye Christopher Robin
- The Glass Castle
- Borg vs McEnroe
- Victoria & Abdul
- The Limehouse Golem
- Dunkirk
- Le Doulos
- The Big Sick
- Slack Bay (Ma Loute)
- My Cousin Rachel
- Gifted
- Manhattan
- The Promise
- Lady Macbeth
- The Handmaiden
- Their Finest
- Going in Style
- The Time of Their Lives
- Patriots Day
- My Internship in Canada (Guibord s'en-va-t-en guerre}
- Moonlight
- Hidden Figures
- Toni Erdmann
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Jackie
- Lion
- Irreplaceable (Médecin de Campagne)
- Manchester by the Sea
Books Read 2017
- The Red House Mystery (AA Milne)
- Excellent Women (Barbara Pym)
- Manderley Forever, The Life of Daphne du Maurier (Tatiana de Rosnay)
- What Happened (Hilary Rodham Clinton)
- The Long View (Elizabeth Jane Howard)
- The Sparsholt Affair (Alan Hollingshurst)
- Book of Dust/Vol 1 La Belle Sauvage (Philip Pullman)
- Abide with Me (Elizabeth Strout)
- Hillbilly Elegy (JM Vance)
- The Misty Harbour (Georges Simenon)
- Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman)
- Munich (Robert Harris)
- A Life of My Own (Claire Tomalin)
- A Legacy of Spies (John le Carré)
- The Improbability of Love (Hannah Rothschild)
- Midwinter Break (Bernard MacLaverty)
- The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By (Georges Simenon)
- The End of Eddy (Édouard Louis)
- Joining the Dots (Juliet Gardiner)
- The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead)
- Dirty Snow (Georges Simenon)
- The Good Bohemian, The Letters of Ida John (ed Rebecca John and MIchael Holroyd)
- The Year of the Runaways (Sunjeev Sahota)
- Home Cooking (Laurie Colwin)
- Cry, Mother Spain (Lydie Salvayre)
- Party Girls Die in Pearls (Plum Sykes)
- A Talent for Murder (Andrew Wilson)
- Never Mind (Edward St Aubyn)
- Lost for Words (Edward St Aubyn)
- Going Abroad (Rose Macaulay)
- Mamma (Diana Tutton)
- An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth (Chris Hadfield)
- Agnes Grey (Anne Brontë)
- A Separation (Katie Kitamura)
- The Good People (Hannah Kent)
- The Power (Naomi Alderson)
- Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
- Emma Brown (Clare Boylan)
- The Case of the Late Pig (Margery Allingham)
- Slipstream (Elizabeth Jane Howard)
- Enlightened Princesses, Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte and the Shaping of the Modern World (Joanna Marschner)
- Nutshell (Ian McEwan)
- The Blue Flower (Penelope Fitzgerald)
- Some Country Houses and their Owners (James Lees-Milne)
- Emmeline (Judith Rossner)
- Requiem for a Wren (Nevil Shute)
- The Orchardist (Amanda Coplin)
- Let Me Tell You About a Man I Knew (Susan Fletcher)
- Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders)
- Bond Street Story (Norman Collins)
- The Long Weekend, Life in the English Country House Between the Wars (Adrian Tinniswood)
- A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)
- This House of Grief (Helen Garner)
- Terms and Conditions, Life in Girls' Boarding-Schools, 1939-1979 (Ysenda Maxtone-Graham)
- The Real Mrs Miniver (Ysenda Maxtone Graham)
- Earth and High Heaven (Gwethalyn Graham)
- Swing Time (Zadie Smith)
- A Florence Diary (Diana Athill)
- Flâneuse (Lauren Elkin)
- Léon and Louise (Alex Capus)
- It Can't Happen Here (Sinclair Lewis)
- The Greedy Queen, Eating with Victoria (Annie Gray)
- Miss Bunting (Angela Thirkell)
- Jane Austen At Home (Lucy Worsley)
- Offshore (Penelope Fitzgerald
- Commonwealth (Ann Patchett)
- Maigret Victorious (Georges Simenon)
- If England Were Invaded (William Le Queux)
- Pomfret Towers (Angela Thirkell)
- Burial Rites (Hannah Kent)
- My Name is Victoria (Lucy Worsley)
- The Diary of a Nobody (George and William Grossmith)
- The Growing Summer (Noel Streatfeild)
Exhibitions 2016
- Beyond Caravaggio (National Gallery)
- Picasso Portraits (NPG)
- Queen Victoria in Paris (Compton Verney)
- Stanley Spencer, Visionary Painter of the Natural World (Stanley Spencer Gallery)
- Close Up and Personal: Victorians and their Photographs (Watts Gallery)
- Winifred Knights (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Missoni Art Colour (Fashion Museum)
- The Empress and the Gardener (Hampton Court)
- Nikolai Astrup: Painting Norway (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear (V&A)
- Dutch Flowers (National Gallery)
- Samuel Pepys, Plague, Fire, Revolution (National Maritime Museum)
- Botticelli Reimagined (V&A)
- Boydell's Vision, The Shakespeare Gallery in the 18th Century (Compton Verney)
- Shakespeare in Art, Tempests, Tyrants and Tragedy (Compton Verney)
- Vogue 100, A Century of Style (NPG)
- Beyond Beauty, Transforming the Body in Ancient Egypt (Two Temple Place)
- Painting the Modern Garden:Monet to Matisse (Royal Academy)
Films 2016
- A United Kingdom
- Rosalie Blum
- The Light Between Oceans
- Deepwater Horizon
- I, Daniel Blake
- Hell or High Water
- Anthropoid
- Captain Fantastic
- Churchill
- Mustang
- Saint Cyr
- Love and Friendship
- Romeo and Juliet
- Sing Street
- Son of Saul
- Florence Foster Jenkins
- Eye in the Sky
- Eddie the Eagle
- Marguerite
- Truth
- Lord of the Flies
- The Lobster
- A Bigger Splash
- Spotlight
- Trumbo
Books Read 2016
- The Secrets of Wishtide (Kate Saunders)
- Journey into Fear (Eric Ambler)
- His Bloody Project (Graeme Macrae Burnet)
- Orchid, A Cultural History (Jim Endersby)
- A Manual for Cleaning Women (Lucia Berlin)
- The Essex Serpent (Sarah Perry)
- Caught in the Revolution, Petrograd 1917 (Helen Rappaport)
- Maigret et le client du samedi (Georges Simenon)
- Kew Gardens (Virginia Woolf)
- Celia (EH Young)
- Conclave (Robert Harris)
- The Many (Wyl Menmuir)
- Elizabeth Jane Howard, A Dangerous Innocence (Artemis Cooper)
- A Whole Life (Robert Seethaler)
- The Vicar's Daughter (EH Young)
- The Sportswriter (Richard Ford)
- Plant: Exploring the Botanical World
- The Warden (Anthony Trollope)
- End Games in Bordeaux (Allan Massie)
- Cold Winter in Bordeaux (Allan Massie)
- When the Wind Blows (Cyril Hare)
- History of the Rain (Niall Williams)
- In the Year of Jubilee (George Gissing)
- A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)
- Trio (Sue Gee)
- Everyone Brave Is Forgiven (Chris Cleave)
- The Stranger's Child (Alan Hollinghurst)
- The Invention of Nature, The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt (Andrea Wulf)
- Maigret and the Minister (Georges Simenon)
- Carol (Patricia Highsmith)
- Dark Summer in Bordeaux (Allan Massie)
- Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Elena Ferrante)
- Lucy Carmichael (Margaret Kennedy)
- Brightness (Elizabeth Jenkins)
- Toasted English (Marghanita Laski)
- Robert and Helen (Elizabeth Jenkins)
- Liberty Bar (Georges Simenon)
- Guard Your Daughters (Diana Tutton)
- Someone at a Distance (Dorothy Whipple)
- Grief is the Thing with Feathers (Max Porter)
- The Ladies of Lyndon (Margaret Kennedy)
- Together and Apart (Margaret Kennedy)
- The Bar on the Seine (Georges Simenon)
- Little Man,What Now? (Hans Fallada)
- A Woman on the Edge of Time (Jeremy Gavron)
- Death in Bordeaux (Allan Massie)
- The Innocents (Margery Sharp)
- A House Full of Daughters (Juliet Nicolson)
- The Flemish House (Georges Simenon)
- Freya (Anthony Quinn)
- The Catherine Wheel (Elizabeth Harrower)
- Oxford College Gardens (Tim Richardson)
- The Folded Leaf (William Maxwell)
- The Saint-Fiacre Affaire (Georges Simenon)
- My Name is Lucy Barton (Elizabeth Strout)
- Mothering Sunday (Graham Swift)
- Lock Nº1 (Georges Simenon)
- A Single Man (Christopher Isherwood)
- Maria Merian's Butterflies (Kate Heard)
- History of a Suicide (Jill Bialosky)
- Alive, Alive Oh! (Diana Athill)
- Maman, What Are We Called Now?(Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar)
- Shakespeare's Gardens (Jackie Bennett)
- The Godwits Fly (Robin Hyde)
- Lady with Green Fingers, The Life of Jane Loudon (Bea Howe)
- The Bostonians (Henry James)
- A Notable Woman, The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt (ed: Simon Garfield)
- Strangers on a Bridge, The Case of Colonel Abel (James B Donovan)
- Eliza Rose (Lucy Worsley)
- Carrie's War (Nina Bawden)
- H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald)
Exhibitions 2015
- Masters of the Everyday: Dutch Artists in the Age of Vermeer (Queen's Gallery)
- Christmas Past (Geffrye Museum)
- Tintin: Hergé's Masterpiece (Somerset House)
- Ai Weiwei (Royal Academy)
- Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection (V&A)
- Jean-Etienne Liotard (Royal Academy)
- White (Royal Academy)
- Mademoiselle Privé (Saatchi Gallery)
- Periodic Tales: The Art of the Elements (Compton Verney)
- The Fabric of India (V&A)
- Ladybird by Design (House of Illustration)
- Gnome & Away, Secrets of the Collection (Garden Museum)
- Sonia Delaunay (Tate Modern)
- Audrey Hepburn, Portraits of an Icon (NPG)
- The Arts & Crafts House Then and Now (Compton Verney)
- Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy)
- Shoes: Pleasure and Pain (V&A)
- Pre-War Scotland (Richard Green)
- Joshua Reynolds: Experiments in Paint (Wallace Collection)
- Liberating Fashion: Aesthetic Dress in Victorian Portraits (Watts Gallery)
- Ravilious (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Fashion on the Ration (Imperial War Museum)
- Richard Diebenkorn (Royal Academy)
- Emily Patrick (Gallery 8)
- Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (V&A)
- The Non-Conformists: Photographs by Martin Parr (Compton Verney)
- Canaletto: Celebrating Britain (Compton Verney)
- Paradise Regained: Stanley Spencer in the Aftermath of World War One (Stanley Spencer Gallery)
- Inventing Impressionism (National Gallery)
- Peder Balke (National Gallery)
- Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends (NPG)
- Cotton to Gold, Extraordinary Collections of the Industrial North West (Two Temple Place)
- Lines in the Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage (British Library)
- Terror and Wonder:The Gothic Imagination (British Library)
- From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
- Grayson Perry: Who Are You? (NPG)
- Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy, 1860-1960 (NPG)
Films 2015
- Ex Machina
- Carol
- Bridge of Spies
- Brooklyn
- The Lady in the Van
- Brief Encounter
- Suffragette
- 45 Years
- In Cold Blood
- Everyone's Going to Die
- Far from the Madding Crowd
- Suite Française
- The Tales of Hoffmann
- The Theory of Everything
Books Read 2015
- Fates and Furies (Lauren Groff)
- Mystery in White (J Jefferson Farjeon)
- The Brimming Cup (Dorothy Canfield)
- Mr Mac and Me (Esther Freud)
- The White Road (Edmund de Waal)
- The Story of a New Name (Elena Ferrante)
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Richard Fleming)
- National Provincial (Lettice Cooper)
- Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life (Nina Stibbe)
- Celia Johnson (Kate Fleming)
- The Dust that Falls from Dreams (Louis de Bernières)
- Nelly Dean (Alison Case)
- William Robinson, The Wild Gardener (Richard Bisgrove)
- Forlorn Sunset (Michael Sadleir)
- Vain Shadow (Jane Hervey)
- The Shepherd's Life, A Tale of Life in the Lake District (James Rebanks)
- All My Puny Sorrows (Miriam Toews)
- Grace and Mary (Melvyn Bragg)
- Virginia Woolf (Alexandra Harris)
- Inside the O'Briens (Lisa Genova)
- Virginia Woolf's Garden, The story of the garden at Monk's House (Caroline Zoob)
- All the Birds, Singing (Evie Wyld)
- The Unexpected Professor, An Oxford Life in Books (John Carey)
- The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)
- The Miniaturist (Jessie Burton)
- The Gardens of William Morris (Jill Duchess of Hamilton, Penny Hart & John Simmons)
- Bodies of Light (Sarah Moss)
- A Spool of Blue Thread (Anne Tyler)
- The World my Wilderness (Rose Macaulay)
- The Arts & Crafts House, Then and Now (Compton Verney exhibition catalogue)
- In the Country of Men (Hisham Matar)
- Entry Island (Peter May)
- County Chronicle (Angela Thirkell)
- Greengates (RC Sherriff)
- Fever (Mary Beth Keane)
- The Blue Hour, A Portrait of Jean Rhys (Lilian Pizzichini)
- The Angel in the Corner (Monica Dickens)
- Voyage in the Dark (Jean Rhys)
- Until Further Notice, I Am Alive (Tom Lubbock)
- My Brilliant Friend (Elena Ferrante)
- Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)
- Reunion (Fred Uhlman)
- Lost in Translation (Eva Hoffman)
- My Life in Houses (Margaret Forster)
- New Grub Street (George Gissing)
- Wordsworth's Gardens (Carol Buchanan)
- The Iceberg (Marion Coutts)
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying (Marie Kondo)
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce)
- Cooking and Dining in Tudor and Early Stuart England (Peter Brears)
- Village of Secrets, Defying the Nazis in Vichy France (Caroline Moorehead)
Exhibitions 2014
- Ordinary Beauty - The Photography of Edwin Smith (RIBA)
- Rembrandt: The Late Works (National Gallery)
- Howard Hodgkin: Green Thoughts (Alan Cristea Gallery)
- Two Pataphysicians:Flanagan, Miró (Waddington Custot)
- Giovanni Battista Moroni (Royal Academy)
- Gardens and War (Garden Museum)
- Horst, Photographer of Style (V&A)
- Constable, The Making of a Master (V&A)
- Glasgow Style: Arts and Crafts from 1890-1930 (Blackwell)
- Primrose: Early Colour Photography in Russia (Photographers' Gallery)
- Lorenzo Vitturi: Dalston Anatomy (Photographers' Gallery)
- British Folk Art (Tate Britain)
- Reason & Intuition: Alvar Aalto and Ole Kolehmainen (Pitzhanger Manor)
- The Scottish Colourist, JD Fergusson (Pallant House)
- Made in Mexico: The Rebozo in Art, Culture and Fashion (Fashion Museum)
- Virginia Woolf, Art, Life and Vision (NPG)
- Ming, The Golden Empire (National Museum of Scotland)
- American Impressionism (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art)
- Alan Titchmarsh, 50 Years of Gardening (Garden Museum)
- Art and Life (Dulwich PG)
- Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs (Tate Modern)
- East Kent Printmakers (Whitstable Museum)
- Hockney, printmaker (Dulwich PG)
- Wedding Dresses, 1775-2014 (V&A)
- Boro (Somerset House)
- Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice (National Gallery)
- Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance (National Gallery)
- The Sunflowers (National Gallery)
- John Ruskin, Photographer and Draughtsman (Watts Gallery)
- The Great War in Portraits (NPG)
- William Kent, Designing Georgian Britain (V&A)
- Selling Dreams: 100 Years of Fashion Photography (V&A)
- The Glamour of Italian Fashion, 1945-2014 (V&A)
- Artist Textiles, Picasso to Warhol (Fashion Museum)
- Dale Chihuly, Beyond the Object (Halcyon Gallery)
- Joan Warburton and the Benton End Effect (Medici Gallery)
- Just Glass: The Art of the Possible (Pitzhanger Manor)
- Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! (Somerset House)
- Art, Science & Exploration from the University of Cambridge Museums (Two Temple Place)
- Moore Rodin (Compton Verney)
- Cartier:Le Style et L'Histoire (Grand Palais)
- Fashion & Gardens (Garden Museum)
- Stanley Spencer:Heaven in a Hell of War (Somerset House)
- The Glamour of Bellville Sassoon (Fashion Museum)
- An American in London: Whistler and the Thames (Dulwich PG)
Films 2014
- Paddington
- Testament of Youth
- The Imitation Game
- Hockney: Live from LA
- Mr Turner
- Retour á Kotelnitch
- Finding Vivian Maier
- The Deer Hunter
- The Lady From Shanghai
- Day of the Flowers
- Monsieur Hire
- Plot for Peace
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Inside Llewyn Davis
- Funny Face
- The Invisible Woman
- Saving Mr Banks
- The Night of the Hunter
Books Read 2014
- This Boy, A Memoir of a Childhood (Alan Johnson)
- Lolly Willowes (Sylvia Townsend Warner)
- Boy of My Heart (Marie Leighton)
- Tempestuous Petticoat (Clare Leighton)
- Summer Half (Angela Thirkell)
- The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher:Stories (Hilary Mantel)
- The Lake District Murder (John Bude)
- Middlemarch (George Eliot)
- Six Poets, Hardy to Larkin (Alan Bennett)
- Man at the Helm (Nina Stibbe)
- The Children Act (Ian McEwan)
- The Bookstore (Deborah Meyler)
- The London Scene (Virginia Woolf)
- The Shock of the Fall (Nathan Filer)
- Murder Underground (Mavis Doriel Hay)
- The Happy Tree (Rosalind Murray)
- The Paying Guests (Sarah Waters)
- Disappeared (Anthony Quinn)
- On the Side of the Angels (Betty Miller)
- London War Notes (Mollie Panter-Downes)
- All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Duerr)
- An Officer and a Spy (Robert Harris)
- A Life Drawing, Recollections of an Illustrator (Shirley Hughes)
- Chatterton Square (EH Young)
- American Impressionism, A New Vision, 1880-1900 (ed Katherine M Bourguignon)
- The Yellow Dog (Georges Simenon)
- Ming, The Golden Empire (National Museums Scotland)
- Longbourn (Jo Baker)
- Out Stealing Horses (Per Petterson)
- Madame Solario (Anon)
- The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)
- Journey Into the Whirlwind (Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg)
- Poppies and Roses (Marjorie Seldon)
- The Promise (Ann Weisgarber)
- A Curious Career (Lynn Barber)
- William (EH Young)
- The Three Sisters (May Sinclair)
- The Grass is Singing (Doris Lessing)
- Toast & Marmalade (Emma Bridgewater)
- Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)
- A Discovery of Witches (Deborah Harkness)
- Murder Must Advertise (Dorothy L Sayers)
- The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)
- A Delicate Truth (John le Carré)
- I'm Not Complaining (Ruth Adam)
- Making Poldark (Robin Ellis)
- Loving (Henry Green)
- The Pajama Game (Richard Bissell)
- The Wedding Dress (Edwina Ehrman)
- The Finishing School (Muriel Spark)
- The Stranger in the Mirror (Jane Shilling)
- How to be a Heroine (Samantha Ellis)
- Romantic Moderns (Alexandra Harris)
- The Vet's Daughter (Barbara Comyns)
- Rustication (Charles Palliser)
- Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge (Lindy Woodhead)
Films 2013
- Enough Said
- Philomena
- Hannah Arendt
- Blue Jasmine
- Le Week-end
- What Maisie Knew
- Bonjour Tristesse
- Frances Ha
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Before Midnight
- Populaire
- Dial M for Murder
- The King of Marvin Gardens
- Scarecrow
- Chimpanzee
- Side Effects
Books Read 2013
- Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life (Nina Stibbe)
- London Match (Len Deighton)
- Mexico Set (Len Deighton)
- Berlin Game (Len Deighton)
- Coming Home (Sue Gee)
- Mrs Mike (Benedict and Nancy Freedman)
- Magda (Meike Ziervogel)
- Miss Buncle Married (DE Stevenson)
- Family Secrets, Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day (Deborah Cohen)
- Mad Girl's Love Song, Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted (Andrew Wilson)
- Georgians Revealed, Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain (ed: Moira Goff et al)
- The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
- The Uncoupling (Meg Wolitzer)
- One Soufflé at a Time (Anne Willan)
- All Change (Elizabeth Jane Howard)
- The Exiles Return (Elisabeth de Waal)
- The Hotel (Elizabeth Bowen)
- Letters from Skye (Jessica Brockmole)
- Stoner (John Williams)
- The Curate's Wife (EH Young)
- Miss Mole (EH Young)
- Her Son's Wife (Dorothy Canfield)
- Persuasion (Jane Austen)
- Sweet Tooth (Ian McEwan)
- Enid Bagnold (Anne Sebba)
- Poppies for England (Susan Scarlett)
- Ella Minnow Pea (Mark Dunn)
- Where'd You Go, Bernadette? (Maria Semple)
- Pippa Passes (Rumer Godden)
- Heat Lightning (Helen Hull)
- Mary, Queen of Scots (Rosalind K Marshall)
- A Most Wanted Man (John le Carré)
- Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers)
- The Squire (Enid Bagnold)
- Tragedy at Law (Cyril Hare)
- Gossip (Beth Gutcheon)
- Patience (John Coates)
- The Tin Roof Blowdown (James Lee Burke)
- Bring Up the Bodies (Hilary Mantel)
- Barnaby Rudge (Charles Dickens)
- The Female Detective (Andrew Forrester)
- The Chessmen (Peter May)
- Mr Bridge (Evan S Connell)
- Mrs Bridge (Evan S Connell)
- Period Piece (Gwen Raverat)
- The Observations (Jane Harris)
- The Last Runaway (Tracy Chevalier)
- The Dinner (Herman Koch)
- The Thoughtful Dresser (Linda Grant)
- A Week in December (Sebastian Faulks)
- Love on the Supertax (Marghanita Laski)
- Half Blood Blues (Esi Edugyan)
Films 2012
- What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
- Catimini (Behind Closed Doors)
- The Muppet Christmas Carol
- Liberal Arts
- Quartet
- Anna Karenina
- Shadow Dancer
- Moonrise Kingdom
- Woody Allen: A Documentary
- The Apartment
- Death Watch
- Le Havre
- Goodbye, First Love
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
- A Separation
- The Artist
- The Iron Lady
Books Read 2012
- The Glass Room (Simon Mawer)
- What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved (John Mullan)
- Harriet (Elizabeth Jenkins)
- The Sisters Brothers (Patrick deWitt)
- Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)
- No Surrender (Constance Maud)
- In a Lonely Place (Dorothy B Hughes)
- An Artist of the Floating World (Kazuo Ishiguro)
- Hollywood Costume (Ed: Deborah Nadoolman Landis)
- The End of Your Life Book Club (Will Schwalbe)
- Life and Fate (Vasily Grossman)
- Jacob's Room (Virginia Woolf)
- Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
- Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris ... (Leanne Shapton)
- Try Anything Twice (Jan Struther)
- Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)
- Celia Birtwell (Celia Birtwell)
- Between the Acts (Virginia Woolf)
- Night and Day (Virginia Woolf)
- David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
- The World's Wife (Carol Ann Duffy)
- The Blush (Elizabeth Taylor)
- Mrs Bridge (Evan S Connell)
- At the Jerusalem (Paul Bailey)
- The Expendable Man (Dorothy B Hughes)
- Into the Light: French and British painting from Impressionism to the early 1920s (Ed: Sam Smiles)
- The Best of Everything (Rona Jaffe)
- Cakes and Ale (W Somerset Maugham)
- The Lifeboat (Charlotte Rogan)
- Modern, The Modern Movement in Britain (Alan Powers)
- Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Jeanette Winterson)
- A Card From Angela Carter (Susannah Clapp)
- At Mrs Lippincote's (Elizabeth Taylor)
- Freedom (Jonathan Franzen)
- A Bigger Message, Conversations with David Hockney (Martin Gayford)
- The Other Elizabeth Taylor (Nicola Beauman)
- The Lewis Man (Peter May)
- Abide with Me (Elizabeth Strout)
- Pure (Andrew Miller)
- Charles Dickens, A Life (Claire Tomalin)
- Half of the Human Race (Anthony Quinn)
- The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes)
- Hockney, the Biography (Christopher Simon Sykes)
- The Crowded Street (Winifred Holtby)
- Gillespie and I (Jane Harris)
- Oak (Stephen Taylor)
- Bricks and Mortar (Helen Ashton)
- The Paper Garden (Molly Peacock)
- The Odd Women (George Gissing)
- Terra Incognita, Travels in Antarctica (Sara Wheeler)
- Ghastly Business (Louise Levene)
Books Read 2011
- How to be a Woman (Caitlin Moran)
- The Blackhouse (Peter May)
- On Canaan's Side (Sebastian Barry)
- Lady Audley's Secret (Mary Elizabeth Braddon)
- Sky Burial (Xinran)
- Westwood (Stella Gibbons)
- On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 (Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg)
- Brook Evans (Susan Glaspell)
- The Pattern in the Carpet (Margaret Drabble)
- The Christmas Truce (Carol Ann Duffy)
- The Last September (Elizabeth Bowen)
- Nemesis (Philip Roth)
- Our Spoons Came From Woolworths (Barbara Comyns)
- The Translation of the Bones (Francesca Kay)
- Some Tame Gazelle (Barbara Pym)
- A Place of Greater Safety (Hilary Mantel)
- The Pregnant Widow (Martin Amis)
- Manja (Anna Gmeyner)
- Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (Penelope Mortimer)
- The Finkler Question (Howard Jacobson)
- Doreen (Barbara Noble)
- The Dolls' House (Rumer Godden)
- My Ántonia (Willa Cather)
- Fidelity (Susan Glaspell)
- Hostages to Fortune (Elizabeth Cambridge)
- A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle)
- A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula Le Guin)
- A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
- Making Conversation (Christine Longford)
- The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow (Mrs Oliphant)
- Farewell Leicester Square (Betty Miller)
- Miss Ranskill Comes Home (Barbara Euphan Todd)
- Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary (Ruby Ferguson)
- The Home-Maker (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)
- NY JS DB 62 (David Bailey)
- The Very Thought of You (Rosie Alison)
- The Good Soldier (Ford Madox Ford)
- The Surprising Life of Constance Spry (Sue Shephard)
- Flowers on the Grass (Monica Dickens)
- Brodeck's Report (Philippe Claudel)
- Stanley Spencer and the English Garden (Steven Parissien)
- The Group (Mary McCarthy)
- One Fine Day (Mollie Panter-Downes)
- The Tulip (Anna Pavord)
- Hancox: A House and a Family (Charlotte Moore)
- Alone in Berlin (Hans Fallada)
- A Homemade Life (Molly Wizenberg)
- Collected Poems (Philip Larkin)
- Excellent Women (Barbara Pym)
- So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
- Mrs Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
- Specimen Days (Michael Cunningham)
- Letters to Monica (Philip Larkin)
- The Whicharts (Noel Streatfeild)
- Decline and Fall (Evelyn Waugh)
- Dissolution (CJ Sansom)
- The Hare with Amber Eyes (Edmund de Waal)
- Fattypuffs and Thinifers (André Maurois)
- Earth & Heaven (Sue Gee)
- Miss Buncle's Book (DE Stevenson)
- The Berlin Novels (Christopher Isherwood)
- Mrs Parkington (Louis Bromfield)
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot)
- Just Kids (Patti Smith)
- Haunts of the Black Masseur, The Swimmer as Hero (Charles Sprawson)
- The Long Song (Andrea Levy)
- The Return of the Soldier (Rebecca West)
- Good Evening, Mrs Craven, The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
- The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)
- Songs of Blue and Gold (Deborah Lawrenson)
- Wild Romance, The True Story of a Victorian Scandal (Chloë Schama)
- Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson)
- Children of the Archbishop (Norman Collins)
- Corrag (Susan Fletcher)
- Let the Great World Spin (Colum McCann)
Books read 2010
- The Owl Service (Alan Garner)
- Operation Heartbreak (Duff Cooper)
- South Riding (Winifred Holtby)
- Tamara Drewe (Posy Simmonds)
- A Game of Hide and Seek (Elizabeth Taylor)
- Summer Will Show (Sylvia Townsend Warner)
- The Outward Room (Millen Brand)
- Family Roundabout (Richmal Crompton)
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson)
- The Lacuna (Barbara Kingsolver)
- Beside the Sea (Véronique Olmi)
- Frost in May (Antonia White)
- Troubles (JG Farrell)
- 44 Scotland Street (Alexander McCall Smith)
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder)
- London Belongs To Me (Norman Collins)
- Waterlog, A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain (Roger Deakin)
- The Swimmer (John Cheever)
- The Mitfords, Letters Between Six Sisters (ed Charlotte Mosley)
- Tea with Mr Rochester (Frances Towers)
- The Hare with Amber Eyes (Edmund de Waal)
- Family Album (Penelope Lively)
- Because of the Lockwoods (Dorothy Whipple)
- Treasures of Time (Penelope Lively)
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)
- The Help (Kathryn Stockett)
- The Lollipop Shoes (Joanne Harris)
- A Dance to the Music of Time (Vol 3: The Acceptance World, Anthony Powell)
- The Greengage Summer (Rumer Godden)
- Oleander, Jacaranda (Penelope Lively)
- I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)
- The Millstone (Margaret Drabble)
- Hearts and Minds (Amanda Craig)
- Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)
- George Eliot, The Last Victorian (Kathryn Hughes)
- Brooklyn (Colm Tóibín)
- The Go-Between (LP Hartley)
- Thank Heaven Fasting (EM Delafield)
- Illyrian Spring (Ann Bridge)
- The Way Things Are (EM Delafield)
- Old Friends and New Fancies (Sybil G Brinton)
- Impressionist Gardens (Clare Willsdon)
- In the Gardens of Impressionism (Clare AP Willsdon)
- The Peachgrowers' Almanac (Elaine di Rollo)
- Every Good Deed (Dorothy Whipple)
- The Virago Book of Food, The Joy of Eating (ed Jill Foulston)
- The Flower of May (Kate O'Brien)
- Mildred Pierce (James M Cain)
- The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (George Cavendish)
- Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)
- I Know My Own Heart, The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840 (ed Helena Whitbread)
- Croc Attack (Assaf Gavron)
- Palladian (Elizabeth Taylor)
- The Thing Around Your Neck (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
- Don't Tell Alfred (Nancy Mitford)
- Love in a Cold Climate (Nancy Mitford)
- The Winds of Heaven (Monica Dickens)
- The Pursuit of Love (Nancy Mitford)
- A London Girl of the 1880s (MV Hughes)
- The Death of the Heart (Elizabeth Bowen)
- Their Finest Hour and a Half (Lissa Evans)
- The Widow Barnaby (Fanny Trollope)
- Flowers for Mrs Harris (Paul Gallico)
- Telling Tales (Alan Bennett)
- The Innocent (Ian McEwan)
- Changing My Mind (Zadie Smith)
- Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather)
- Chronicles, Volume One (Bob Dylan)
- A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
- The Painter of Signs (RK Narayan)
- The Matchmaker (Stella Gibbons)
- Travels with Charley (John Steinbeck)
- An Education (Lynn Barber)
- Late and Soon (EM Delafield)
- London's War, The Shelter Drawings of Henry Moore (Julian Andrews)
- Crossing to Safety (Wallace Stegner)
- Still Missing (Beth Gutcheon)
- Selected Diaries (Virginia Woolf)
- To Bed With Grand Music (Marghanita Laski)
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2 comments:
Gosh, the photo is somewhat sinister. I think it looks too exciting for me!
I'm in awe of the director, cast and crew who braved so much to make this film, Pam (and they deserve far more than my scrappy blog post that make it sound like a run of the mill thriller!). Really worth watching - and I do hope it picks up an Oscar next week.
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