Acclaimed screenwriter Rowan Joffé will try his hand at the directing game next year. For his debut, he has selected an auspiciously high-profile story. Brighton Rock, adapted from Graham Greene’s 1938 novel, is a captivating crime thriller and a chilling exploration of the human capacity for love, betrayal and violence. If all goes right, this will be one beautiful and scary film.
Great Britain
Brighton Rock Rises Again. Graham Greene Abides.
by Dan Fields
December 20th, 2010
A Watchful Eye On… Sherlock Holmes
by Dan Fields
December 15th, 2010
Sherlock Holmes as a strict Victorian period piece is over and done with, but the character still has potential in a new context. The only rule is not to stray from the unique faculties that make Sherlock such a distinctive and popular hero. If the story’s focus ceases to be the detective’s brilliant deductive logic, then the magic is lost and the character wasted. If, however, due attention and respect are paid to this detail, the rest is free and open to broader interpretation.
Book Review: Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith
by Ed Voves
August 12th, 2010
The legions of admirers of Smith’s other novels, notably The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, will find a great deal to keep them happily reading Corduroy Mansions. The twist with this book, however, is that it is the print version of the author’s first online novel.
Book Review: Winston’s War: Churchill, 1940-1945 by Max Hastings
by Ed Voves
June 29th, 2010
The next two years of the war for Churchill were a harrowing march through what his wife, Clementine called the “valley of humiliation.” Defeats in Greece, in the Battle of Crete and in North Africa in 1941 were followed by the Japanese capture of Singapore in February 1942. That same month, the daring “Channel Dash” by German warships under siege in Cherbourg to their home naval bases stung British pride to its core. Great Britain, the nation of Marlborough, Churchill’s warrior ancestor, and Lord Nelson was losing the war on land and sea.
Book Review: The Art Detective by Philip Mould
by Julia Braun Kessler
June 8th, 2010
Yet another of his discoveries turns out to be a lost watercolor by one of America’s greatest 19th century artists, Winslow Homer — a painting which had literally appeared out of nowhere one day in Southern Ireland, abandoned next to a dump heap! The work had been miraculously rescued by a local fisherman.
Book Review: Wild Romance: A Victorian Story of a Marriage, a Trial, and a Self-Made Woman by Chloë Schama
by Elinor Teele
April 26th, 2010
A secret affair. A scandalous sex-filled trial. A tell-all novel. If it’s any consolation to Tiger Woods and Jesse James, they’re not the first to be stripped down to their Jockeys on a worldwide scale. Welcome, William Charles Yelverton, Victorian seducer.
Small Wars by Sadie Jones
by John R. Guthrie
January 19th, 2010
The conflict becomes a war in which, “…there was no truth. It was a nothing, laughable Mickey Mouse conflict; it was a sinister time of terror and repression. The British were misguided and ignorant; the Cypriots were lethargic and foolish. The Cypriots loved the British; the Cypriots hated the British. The British were torturers; the British were decent and honourable. EOKA were terrorists; EOKA were heroes.”
Churchill by Paul Johnson
by Julia Braun Kessler
December 1st, 2009
And Johnson reminds us of the memorable words he spoke after France capitulated: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’” Here the biographer also observes, “So the first true victory Britain won in the war was the victory of oratory and symbolism. Churchill was responsible for both.”
Love and Summer by William Trevor
by Mark Fitzgerald
November 19th, 2009
Why is it that summer can never last forever, especially when we want it to? The once long and amorous days wane too soon in circumscription. A small chill creeps down from the hills. Something is about to end. Then someone leaves town. Someone always leaves town.
Democracy: 1,000 Years in Pursuit of British Liberty by Peter Kellner
by Jem Bloomfield
September 22nd, 2009
Magna Carta, that legendary document which is so frequently referred to in discussions of freedom, and which permeates our cultural history from Rudyard Kipling (“What say the reeds at Runnymede?”) to Tony Hancock (“Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?! Brave Hungarian peasant girl…”) was produced by a power struggle between the military aristocracy and the monarchy. Any resulting “liberty” for ordinary people was a waste product of the medieval warlord industry.

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