Monthly Archives: September 2012

With the final judging of the Spear’s Book Awards coming up in a few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of reading here in the country. I’m one of the judges for the Fiction category, with a shortlist that comprises of  Absolution by Patrick Flanery, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child, Capital by John Lanchester and […]

Can a critic recommend a hotel that one can never go back to? The reason I doubt I will ever return to the wedding cake palace of the Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat is not the cost (and the hotel is not cheap). Nor is it to do with any aesthetic failings in the impeccable […]