'Nonesuch' by Francis Spufford

10 April 2026

Francis Spufford's debut novel ‘Golden Hill’ (reviewed here in August 2017) remains one of my favourite books - a brilliant tour de force set in Manhattan in 1746: beautifully written, historically fascinating with wonderfully drawn characters and a mesmeric plot. He has followed 'Golden Hill' with three more historical novels, each set in a different period and each exploring different literary genres and setting himself increasingly ambitious narrative challenges. None has been as satisfying as 'Golden Hill', but 'Light Perpetual' (reviewed here in July 2021) and ‘Cahokia Jazz’ (reviewed here in February 2024) were both fascinating and beautifully written. In his fourth novel 'Nonesuch' (which I have just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Lydia Wilson) Francis Spufford steps into the world of fantasy. Set in London in the early years of World War II, from the start it is clear that this is going to be a realistically described London but also one in which magic is present - reminding me of Ben Aaronovitch’s ‘Rivers of London’ novels (reviewed here in June 2018 and August 2022). 'Nonesuch' starts brilliantly and grippingly, as well as being wonderfully laced together with Francis Spufford's beautiful descriptive phrases. But as the novel progressed I felt he had maybe taken on too many different themes at the same time. 'Nonesuch' is a fantasy novel but it is also an account of the reality of being in London at the start of the war, a history of the development of the war, an exploration of economics and the stock market and a reflection of the possibility of time travel. This results in cliffhanger moments of magical peril being diffused by lengthy passages about the financial markets. Nevertheless, Francis Spufford is always an entertaining, clever writer and 'Nonesuch' is an unusual and enthralling read. The picture he paints of everyday life in London during the Blitz is fascinating, reminding me of 'The Night Watch' by Sarah Waters (reviewed here in January 2008). I look forward to seeing where Francis Spufford turns his attention next. 

'Pigs in Heaven' by Barbara Kingsolver

2 April

Having loved Barbara Kingsolver's 1988 novel 'The Bean Trees' (reviewed here in June 2025), I was thrilled to discover that she had written a sequel. ‘Pigs in Heaven’ (published in 1993) shows us what has happened to Taylor and her adopted daughter Turtle three years after we left them settled in Tuscon. They are soon unsettled again and back in the car on an extended road trip as Barbara Kingsolver sensitively explores the implications of Turtle’s Cherokee heritage. She brilliantly constructs a seemingly impossible situation, managing to make the reader simultaneously sympathetic to characters with directly opposing points of view (like Andrea Levy in 'Small Island' (reviewed here in June 2019) or Jonathan Franzen in ‘The Corrections’ (reviewed here in February 2015)). But Barbara Kingsolver’s cast of quirky Dickensian characters are all charmingly likeable and you always feel they are going to find a heart-warming solution. 'Pigs in Heaven' is beautifully written and cleverly plotted. It explores the painful realities of working class life while creating a life-affirming story.

Vienna

2 April 2026

We had a lovely time in Vienna last week, visiting the Schonbrunn Palace - the summer residence of the Hapsburgs - where we walked through the room where the six year old Mozart first performed for the Empress. We enjoyed the Gustav Klimt collection at the Belvedere Palace and walked through the Prater amusement park to see the famous Ferris wheel. We went to the Musikverein to see a great concert by The Orchestral Association of the Society of Friends of Music - Vienna's oldest amateur orchestra (founded in 1859 - 11 years before the Musikverein opened). We also visited the stunning Kunsthistoriches Museum and the Albertina - a lovely art gallery within a beautiful Hapsburg palace. We had a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, where the Old Town is very pretty, with pastel coloured buildings and open squares. We also went by train to the small town of Melk (population 2,000), set on the banks of the Danube in Lower Austria, which is dominated by the dramatic, imposing and enormous Benedictine Monastery, Sift Melk, which sits on a rock, high above the town. Back in Vienna we managed to get cheap standing tickets for the Vienna State Opera where we saw 'The Bartered Bride'. We were in the ground floor standing area at the back of the stalls with a surprisingly good view. It was great to see the inside of the opera house and to see the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. You can see a few of my holiday photos here. 

'Songs of Stolen Children' by Daughters of Donbas

20 March 2026

Daughters of Donbas is a music and human rights project highlighting the stories of children who have been abducted from occupied regions in eastern Ukraine and taken to Russia. Led by the Ukrainian-Canadian singer Marichka, the Daughters of Donas debut album 'Songs of Stolen Children' is a beautiful, engaging and varied collection influenced by Ukrainian folk traditions, indie pop, jazz and tango. Haunting acapella female vocal harmonies are accompanied by a string quartet and traditional Ukrainian instruments including bandura and okaryna. The vocal harmonies reminded me of a range of other Eastern European folk-influenced music, including the Warsaw Village Band (reviewed here in September 2008) and the Eva Quartet from Bulgaria (reviewed here in February 2014). You can listen to the opening track of the Daughters of Donbas album at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrWmPhH3VWk  

'The Ministry of Time' by Kaliane Bradley

13 March 2026

‘The Ministry of Time’ by Kaliane Bradley (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audio book narrated by Katie Leung and George Weightman) is a very clever and engaging time travel story that contemplates what it would be like in practical reality to have travelled from a different time. It is set in London in the near future, when time travel has become a possibility. The Ministry has decided to experiment cautiously by bringing individuals from history through a time portal to the present day, carefully choosing people known from historical records to be about to die, so as to avoid any consequences for the timeline from their removal from the past. One of those chosen, Commander Graham Gore, was a sailor on the ill-fated Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage in 1845 - the story of which was familiar to me from the 2018 TV series, 'The Terror', which told the remarkable story of the two ships Erebus and Terror trapped in the ice in the Arctic for several years. The bulk of Kaliane Bradley's book explores how Commander Gore and his fellow 'ex-pats' from different moments in history would cope assimilating into 21st century Britain with the help of their Bridges - individuals from the Ministry assigned to look after them and induct them into modern life. It's a fascinating and beautifully written description of what it might really be like to be placed out of time. Graham Gore's Bridge is the unnamed narrator, a young British Cambodian woman whose job is to introduce the 19th century sailor to modern technology and sensibilities. It's a beautifully drawn, funny and moving odd-couple romance, which kept my attention throughout. But I always felt there must be something more to the plot, expecting further twists resulting from the availability of time travel. And when these twists did arrive they were very effective, genuinely surprising me. But they came very late in the narrative, with the final chapters feeling like a sudden avalanche of exposition that was quite hard to take in. Nevertheless the Ministry of Time is a fascinating and unusual science fiction story exploring serious and adult themes with the time travellers acting as an analogy for immigration, integration and colonialism. It's a brilliant first novel by Bradley and I look forward to seeing what she writes next. 

Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert

3 March 2026

Our Northampton Symphony Orchestra concert at Spinney Theatre last Saturday featured four pieces by American composers, all written in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrating The Jazz Age and The Golden Age of Hollywood. We opened the concert with Aaron Copland's 'Quiet City' - a remarkable piece for string orchestra with solo parts for trumpet and cor anglais, brilliantly played by NSO members Terry Mayo and Harriet Brown. William Grant Still's 'Symphony No 1: Afro American' was the first symphony by an African American composer to be performed by a major orchestra ion the USA (in 1931). It's a lovely work which pairs up-beat jazz with achingly emotional blues-inspired melodies. I particularly loved the gorgeous slow opening of the final movement with its powerful descending bass line in the tuba. The composer Ferde Grofé is now best remembered as the orchestrator of 'Rhapsody in Blue' by George Gershwin and for his popular 'Grand Canyon Suite'. I hadn't previously encountered his suite '6 Pictures of Hollywood' and enjoyed discovering this comic peak backstage at the making of an imaginary 1930s film musical. Our finale was 'Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture' - Robert Russell Bennett's medley of the classic songs from George Gershwin's folk opera. It's a great arrangement which revels in the wealth of Gershwin's melodies (including 'Summertime', 'Bess, You is My Woman Now', 'I Got Plenty of Nuttin' and 'It Ain't Necessarily So') and toys with the listener - three times sounding as if it has come to a conclusion, only to segue into yet another famous tune. For our celebration of American Voices the NSO was swelled by three harps, four saxophones, banjo and an impressive array of percussion. Our Conductor John Gibbons wonderfully slotted the many jigsaw pieces together on the day: in the concert I think all four pieces were the best we had performed them. But this concert belonged to Terry and Harriet - not only playing their beautiful solo parts in 'Quiet City' but appearing to dominate the rest of the programme too. Both the 'Afro-American Symphony' and 'Porgy and Bess' open with cor anglais solos (followed by a trumpet solo in the Gerswhin) and these and the Grofé feel like showpieces for the trumpets. This really was a fun concert and the cheer from the audience at the end of 'Porgy and Bess' felt well-deserved. 

'Willows' by Pekka Kuusisto, Sam Amidon and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra

27 February 2026

Regular readers will know of my long-standing enthusiasm for all things Finnish, so I was immediately intrigued by the new album 'Willows' featuring the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and the brilliant Finnish violinist and conductor, Pekka Kuusisto. This is, in part, a poignant reflection on grief and loss following the death of Pekka’s brother Jaakko in 2022. Ellen Reid’s 'Desiderium', a visceral howl for solo violin, is dedicated to him and is a deeply moving experience. The centrepiece of the album is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 'The Lark Ascending'. When the Northampton Symphony Orchestra performed this delicate English work in 2013 (reviewed here in November 2013), I was struck by its aching poignancy. Kuusisto’s interpretation is fascinating: he describes his approach not as “deleting notes” but as “deleting ketchup”. By stripping away the lush romanticism often associated with the piece, he reveals its essential roots in the English folk tradition. The album also features Caroline Shaw’s 'Plan & Elevation', an orchestral version of her 2015 string quartet that maps out Washington DC’s Dumbarton Oaks estate. To close, Sam Amidon (who impressed me at the WOMAD Festival, reviewed her in August 2022) adds vocals, guitar, and banjo to six traditional American folk songs arranged by Nico Muhly. 'Willows' is a beautiful, compelling collection that blends classical and folk traditions. 

'The Rose Field' by Philip Pullman

18 February 2026

It's now more than 30 years since the publication of 'Northern Lights', Philip Pullman's first novel recounting the story of Lyra Silvertongue. We followed Lyra and her companions through the three novels of the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, and now with 'The Rose Field' (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audiobook, narrated by Michael Sheen), Pullman's second Lyra trilogy 'The Book of Dust' is complete. Following on directly from 'The Secret Commonwealth' (reviewed here in December 2019), 'The Rose Field' picks up Lyra's journey east across Europe in search of the Red Building and a doorway to another world. Where 'The Secret Commonwealth' felt like a Cold War spy thriller, 'The Rose Field' returns to more fantastical themes, introducing flying gryphons and other mythical creatures. I found it satisfying how many references there were back to the original three novels, bringing the story full circle. But I could have done with more recap of the events from 'The Secret Commonwealth'. There's so much in this final novel that the plot gets quite confusing at times. The characters, however, - particularly Lyra and Malcolm and their daemons, and the wonderful Abdel Ionides - are beautifully drawn, sympathetic and entertaining. And the audio book is worth listening to purely to hear how much fun Michael Sheen is having performing the dramatic events of Lyra's final chapters. If this is the last we see of Lyra, it's been an amazing 30-year journey. And I've enjoyed it all the way. 

'Hamlet' by Aneil Karia

12 February 2026

On Tuesday we were at Cineworld in Milton Keynes to see Aneil Karia's new film of 'Hamlet'. Set in contemporary London around a wealthy British Indian family, it's a clever take on Shakespeare's play - rooting it in the real world with very believable contemporary characters, but still using the Shakespearean text (albeit with much of the original play omitted and the cast thinned down to a few principal protagonists). Riz Ahmed is excellent as the Prince, a very realistic performance with him whispering his soliloquies as if genuinely speaking to himself. It's an interesting contrast with Robert Hastie's National Theatre 'Hamlet' that we saw recently (reviewed here in January 2026). Although we saw that production on screen at the cinema, it was clearly a theatrical production, and Hiran Abeysekera's Hamlet frequently broke the fourth wall to engage the audience directly. Here Riz Ahmed resists any temptation to look at the camera, very focused on his inner turmoil. And the close-up handheld camera shots show every twitch of his facial muscles revealing his thinking and agony. The rest of the cast are also very strong with Art Malik's Claudius the most Shakespearean sounding. Sheeba Chaddha as Gertrude, Timothy Spall as Polonius, Joe Alwyn as Laertes, and Morfydd Clark as Ophelia (who also takes some of the absent Horatio's lines) are all excellent. Cutting the play to focus on the main story and to compress the action into a suitable length for a film, writer Michael Lesslie has removed all the comic relief leaving this a very grim, dark version of 'Hamlet'. But it's a brutally realistic, thrilling tragedy. The scene in which Polonius is killed is viscerally shocking. This is a clever, gripping, dark, contemporary take on 'Hamlet'. 

'A' Chailleach' by Kim Carnie

5 February 2026

I've been really enjoying the 'A' Chailleach', the new album by the young Scottish Gaelic singer Kim Carnie. She calls it "a concept record rooted in female folklore, spell work and hidden histories". Lom Carnie was awarded Gaelic Singer of the Year 2021 and this is her second solo album, following her 2022 debut 'And So We Gather'. Her gentle, catchy Gaelic folk/pop reminded me a lot of the music of Julie Fowlis (reviewed here in February 2006, April 2007 and May 2014), who features as a guest on one track here. I was particularly interested to hear of her cross-cultural collaborations with West African musicians and there is a track on this album featuring the Senegalese musician Sekou Keita (on kora and vocals). These are beautiful new songs by Kim Carnie, but rooted in the Gaelic folk tradition. 

Bedford Sinfonia concert

27 January 2026

On Saturday I was at All Saints Church, Queens Park, Bedford to play in the Bedford Sinfonia concert, conducted by Ian Smith. It's more than 10 years since I last played with the orchestra (accompanying a Bedford Choral Society concert, reviewed here in November 2015). Saturday's concert was a programme of pieces by female composers. We started with Ethel Smyth's Overture 'The Wreckers' - which was, for a long time, the only orchestral piece by a female composer in the repertoire of many orchestras. I enjoyed discovering the 'Gaelic Symphony' by Amy Beach (whose piano concerto we played with Northampton Symphony Orchestra a couple of years ago, reviewed here in July 2024). The second half of the concert featured the 'Overture' by Fanny Mendelssohn, followed by 'Symphony No 1' by Florence Price - the first work by a Black woman composer to be performed by a major US orchestra. I had seen a performance of the symphony by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival (reviewed here in September 2022) and it was great to get the chance to play it. I hadn't played any of the four pieces in Saturday's concert before. It was an interesting and entertaining programme - though quite a long, tiring concert to play. 

'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

26 January 2026

On Thursday evening we were at the Odeon in Milton Keynes to see the NTLive screening of Hamlet, recorded at the Lyttelton Theatre in London. This National Theatre production, directed by Robert Hastie, stars Hiran Abeysekera as a fast-talking ,mischievous Hamlet who spends much of the performance breaking the fourth wall. It's an entertaining and compelling performance. The production emphasises the humour of the play with Geoffrey Streatfeild's Polonius less a bungling old fool than a court jester performing to the king (complete with ukulele) and Francesca Mills' performance as Ophelia straying close to clowning at times, which makes her descent into madness a bit of a handbrake turn. But Alistair Petrie as Claudius and Ayesha Dharker as Gertrude provide a serious center to the story, both making their characters realistic, believable, and surprisingly sympathetic. And Tessa Wong is moving as a caring and emotional Horatio. The last Hamlet we saw was Rupert Goold's incredible production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford last year, setting the whole play on the deck of a ship (reviewed here in February 2025). This new production was always going to struggle to match that wow moment. But while in Stratford Luke Thallon was a brilliant, restless, twitchy Hamlet, it's Es Devlin's magnificent set that I remember, whereas this Hamlet definitely belongs to Hiran Abeysekera. 

'Coven' by Rebecca Brewer and Daisy Chute

20 January 2026

On Saturday we made a first visit to the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, North London, to see 'Coven' - a new musical about the Pendle witch trials written by Rebecca Brewer and Daisy Chute, directed by Miranda Cromwell. The story is built on the possibility that Jenet Device, who was accused of witchcraft by an 11 year old boy in 1633, could have been the same Jenet Device whose evidence as a child witness against her own family in the Pendle trial of 1612 set the precedent for the use of child testimony in witch trials. 'Coven' is a powerful show, performed by an all female cast (with the musicians also forming part of the on stage ensemble). Given the 17th century Lancashire setting I had assumed the music would have a folk feel but the show features an eclectic range of styles from traditional folk to rock, pop, rap and gospel. There is some very impressive singing throughout - with Gabrielle Brooks as Jenet and Lauryn Redding as Rose the standout performances. Jasmine Swan's inventive set suggests Pendle Hill in the background and has a few surprises in store. The show addresses a dark subject and is angering, moving and powerful but also finds humour in a desperate situation and uses some satirical scenes to good effect. The finale packed a strong, emotional punch and had the sold-out (mostly female) audience spontaneously on its feet. 

'Suspicion' by Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

14 January 2026

Having enjoyed 'Tokyo Express', Seicho Matsumoto's intriguing Hitchcockian mystery novel set in 1950s Japan (reviewed here in June 2024), I came across another book by Matsumoto, 'Suspicion' (also recently translated by Jesse Kirkwood). This is more a novella than a novel - a short tale told through the eyes of a journalist who talks to the lawyers defending a woman with gang connections who is suspected of murdering her husband. Loosely based on an actual crime from 1974, 'Suspicion' was first published in Japanese in 1982. It's a slight story but is still a satisfying puzzle, beautifully written in that same lovely polite style (feeling more 1950s than 1980). 

'The Fifth Step' by David Ireland

8 January 2026

On Wednesday we were at the Rufus Centre in Flitwick to see a NTLive filmed screening of 'The Fifth Step' by David Ireland from the Soho Place Theatre in London. This two-hander, performed in the round in a production directed by Finn den Hertog, stars Martin Freeman and Jack Lowden as fellow members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Through a series of conversations we see their relationship develop while their personal journeys speed in opposite directions. 'The Fifth Step' is a dark comedy, its very funny script drawing us into some serious and disturbing topics. It's also an odd couple comedy, with the two characters' age, class, experience and background very alien from each other. There is no-one better than Martin Freeman at mugging in astonishment as his face reveals his dawning understanding of what has just been said. And Jack Lowden gives an incredibly physical performance, constantly twitching and pacing with nervous energy. It's a very cleverly written play that takes you to dark places without taking itself too seriously. 

'The Hallmarked Man' by Robert Galbraith

8 January 2026

It was only when I started the latest Cormoran Strike detective novel, 'The Hallmarked Man' by J K Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith), that I realised I had completely missed the previous book in the series, 'The Running Grave'. I don't think it mattered too much. Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott are still spending a tedious amount of time on routine surveillance, while stumbling on an impossibly complicated murder plot and maintaining their will-they-won't-they mutual attraction. Like its predecessors, 'The Hallmarked Man' (which I've just finished reading as an unabridged audio book, narrated by Robert Glenister) is ridiculously long (31 hours of audio) and desperately in need of a good editor. The main story of an unknown man murdered in a silver vault is actually five separate stories, as each of the five potential victims reveal their own elaborate narratives. The unraveling of the puzzle is engaging and entertaining but it could definitely have benefited from some pruning. And it was fun to continue my game of spotting the glaringly incorrect minor details in J K Rowling's very deliberately real-world contemporary London - this time including a character who spends all day riding a tube train round and round the Circle Line, despite the Circle Line not having run continuously in a circle since 2009.
 

'The Forsyte Saga' by John Galsworthy, dramatised by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan

 8 January 2026

Between Christmas and New Year we were at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company production of John Galsworthy's 'The Forsyte Saga', dramatised in two parts by Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan. I was vaguely aware of 'The Forsyte Saga', mainly from hearing a BBC Radio 4 dramatisation some years ago. That adaptation was the work of McJenna and Coghlan who later decided to use it as the basis for a new stage version which premiered in 2024 at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park and has now transferred to the RSC. To strip Galsworthy's nine novels (written across the first three decades of the twentieth century) into two plays, they sensibly decided to focus on two of the main narratives. Part 1 starts in 1886 and tells the story of Irene Forsyte and her troubled relationship with her husband Soames. Part 2 jumps to the 1920s to focus on Fleur Forsyte. Both plays are narrated (from 1926) by Fleur, who is trying to piece together the reasons for the great schism within the Forsyte family. The plays, directed by Josh Roche, use a very bare stage to allow for multiple rapid scenes, with some characters jumping instantly from one setting to another. A strong cast do a great job of bringing the family and the period to life, with Fiona Hampton as Irene, Flora Spencer-Longhurst as Fleur and Joseph Millson as Soames standing out. And the period costumes by Anna Yates are gorgeous.

'Famous Last Words' by Gillian McAllister

8 January 2026

I'm a fan of the incredibly clever, twisty, tense family thrillers written by Gillian McAllister, and I really enjoyed her latest novel, 'Famous Last Words'. Like many of her books, this plot throws an unsuspecting person suddenly into a violent, scary world of crime. Camilla is about to restart work after maternity leave, dropping her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time, only to discover as she reaches the office that her husband is the perpetrator of an armed siege and is holding three people hostage at gunpoint - which is not something she had seen coming. The piecing together of this unbelievable and shocking situation and how it came about takes the reader on Gillian McAllister's usual journey from unfathomable implausibility to ingenious resolution. It's another pacy, scary, gripping contemporary thriller, which grabbed my attention and made me charge through the novel. 

'What Alice Forgot' by Liane Moriarty

7 January 2026

Having read Liane Moriarty's most recent novel 'Here One Moment' (reviewed here in January 2025) it was interesting to discover a much earlier book, 2009's 'What Alice Forgot', and to see that Liane Moriarty's entertaining style of suburban Australian domestic family life was already established then. The premise of 'What Alice Forgot' is that a head injury causes Alice to lose the last 10 years of her memory - waking to discover she is not 29 years old and expecting her first baby but 39 with three children. Her perfect recall of everything up to 10 years ago but nothing since does feel a bit contrived but allows for an enjoyable form of time travel. Encountering her own mother, transformed from how she remembers her, is like an alternative timeline scene from 'Back to the Future'. Liane Moriarty always reminds me of Anne Tyler but this feels like her most Tylerish novel. She constructs a great cast of slightly eccentric family and friends and it's fun for the reader to put the missing years back together with Alice. It's a funny, moving thought-experiment book.

'Playground' by Richard Powers

7 January 2026

I'm grateful to Gareth Coles for recommending Richard Powers' remarkable 2024 novel 'Playground'. This is an interesting and unusual tale about the oceans, climate change and artificial intelligence. Initially the separate narratives - tracing the lives of students in an American university in the 1990s, a young girl's journey to become a diver and oceanographer, starting in the 1940s, and the contemporary story of the inhabitants of a small island in French Polynesia - feel like intriguing short stories without revealing the bigger picture. But gradually the links between these separate stories become clearer and this complex structure becomes quite compelling, moving from feeling worthy but not gripping to a fascinating jigsaw puzzle. But the book shifts to another level with a huge unexpected metatextual twist which suddenly makes sense of everything you've read so far. The scenes on the island with its cast of eccentric inhabitants - a population of 82 about to vote on the future of their home - reminded me of the novels of Louis de Bernières. And the parallel historic backstory to the oceanographer and her dives reminded me of the famous aviator in 'Great Circle' by Maggie Shipstead (reviewed here in July 2022). The writing is beautiful. and the ecological themes are important and clearly articulated. But it was the ingenious narrative structure of the book that finally gripped me.