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There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift by Kevin Evers
Harvard Business Review Press, 2025 Why? Both professionally and personally, I have a deep interest in what makes personalities and...

Diane Banks
May 262 min read
10 views
0 comments


On Foot in Sussex by AA Evans
Methuen, 1933 Why? A second hand bookshop find which ticked two boxes for me. I'm fascinated by interwar nostalgia in the face of an...

Diane Banks
Apr 212 min read
33 views
0 comments


A King's Story: The Memoirs of HRH The Duke of Windsor KG
The Reprint Society London, 1953 (first published by Cassell & Co, 1951) Why? I've read so many books involving the political and social...

Diane Banks
Apr 132 min read
19 views
0 comments


Affinity by Sarah Waters
Virago Press, 1999 (paperback 2008 & 2012) Why? Sarah Waters is one of my all-time favourite novelists (I particularly loved The Little...

Diane Banks
Feb 151 min read
10 views
0 comments


The Riviera Set 1920-1960: The Golden Years of Glamour and Excess by Mary Lovell
Little, Brown 2016; Abacus 2017 Why? Topical reading in advance of a weekend in Nice. And because Mary Lovell is a phenomenal...

Diane Banks
Dec 14, 20242 min read
12 views
0 comments


Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Penguin paperbacks, 1951 (first published by Chapman & Hall, 1945) Granada Television (ITVX), 1981 Why? I decided on a re-read after...

Diane Banks
Dec 1, 20241 min read
37 views
1 comment


Billionaire Nerd Saviour King: The Hidden Truth About Bill Gates and His Power to Shape the World by Anupreeta Das
Simon & Schuster, 2024 Why? I'm always interested in what drives successful business people and politicians and this biography (if it can...

Diane Banks
Oct 13, 20242 min read
24 views
0 comments


The First Lady of Fleet Street: The Life, Fortune and Tragedy of Rachel Beer by Eilat Negev and Yehida Koren
Robson Press, 2012 Why? During a discussion about Victorian and Edwardian newspaper proprietors, a friend recommended that I look up...

Diane Banks
Sep 1, 20242 min read
25 views
0 comments


Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Doubleday, 2013; Black Swan paperback, 2014 Why? Having belatedly watched the 2022 BBC adaptation, I was intrigued to know how the story...

Diane Banks
Aug 26, 20241 min read
13 views
0 comments


Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Sceptre, 2011 Why? I've had this on my Kindle for years, and, with Amor Towles the talk of the town following the Paramount+ adaptation...

Diane Banks
Jul 21, 20242 min read
15 views
0 comments


The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley
First published by Macmillan, 1984; this edition Vintage paperback Why? I was pretty sure I'd never read it, and as a sucker for...

Diane Banks
Jun 23, 20241 min read
80 views
0 comments


An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
Vintage (paperback edition), 1998 Why? I bought my copy of this bestselling, critically-acclaimed novel when it came out in paperback in...

Diane Banks
May 27, 20242 min read
54 views
0 comments


Read Write Own by Chris Dixon
Cornerstone Press, 2024 Why? Like many others, I spent a considerable part of lockdown setting up my Coinbase account and MetaMask...

Diane Banks
May 19, 20242 min read
40 views
0 comments


The Hotel by Elizabeth Bowen
First published by Jonathan Cape, 1927; this edition Vintage Classics, 2016 Why? The promise of a tight cast of characters, a glamorous...

Diane Banks
Mar 30, 20242 min read
81 views
0 comments


The New Political Capitalism: How businesses and societies can thrive in a deeply politicized world by Joe Zammit-Lucia
Bloomsbury Business, 2022 Why? I met Joe Zammit-Lucia at a think tank event a couple of months ago and looked up this book as a...

Diane Banks
Mar 10, 20242 min read
30 views
0 comments


Traffic: Genius, Rivalry and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to go Viral by Ben Smith
Penguin Press, 2023 Why? Amidst speculation that BuzzFeed will finally collapse in 2024 - following in the footsteps of its fellow...

Diane Banks
Jan 21, 20242 min read
27 views
0 comments


The Jacaranda Tree by HE Bates
Methuen Publishing, 2006 (first published 1949) Why? I've never read HE Bates, and associating him only with the televised version of The...

Diane Banks
Jan 16, 20241 min read
38 views
0 comments


Henry 'Chips' Channon: The Diaries 1918-1938 edited by Simon Heffer
Hutchinson, 2021 Why? Like any afficionado of early twentieth-century British social and political history, I diligently purchased all...

Diane Banks
Nov 26, 20232 min read
26 views
0 comments


The Rector's Daughter by FM Mayor
First published by The Hogarth Press, 1924; this edition Virago, 1987 Why? Continuing with the theme of twentieth-century novels about...

Diane Banks
Nov 4, 20232 min read
54 views
0 comments


Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
Hutchinson Heinemann, 2023 Why? I love a bit of glitz and glamour, but that has most definitely been out of vogue in fiction for the last...

Diane Banks
Sep 24, 20231 min read
13 views
0 comments