Diane Banks

Jonathan Cape; my copy simultaneous QPD bookclub edition, 1998 Why? A Booker winner which I've not read it, and should have done; McEwan is in the news with his new novel What We Can Know ; and, having handled the BCA account at Hodder back in the day, I can't resist the nostalgia of a QPD paperback in a second-hand bookshop. Enjoyment factor Short - and pacy. Lots of great stuff about male friendships in middle age, ego, and doing the right thing. But - the ending for which

Penguin Michael Joseph Mermaid Collection 2025; originally published by Macmillan, 1951 Why? After stumbling across Margaret Kennedy’s better-known novel The Feast  in a charity shop last year - and enjoying it enormously - I was intrigued to see Lucy Carmichael  revived by Penguin Michael Joseph as part of their new Mermaid series , which celebrates neglected mid-to-late twentieth-century novels by women writers. Enjoyment factor This is not as immediately engaging as The Fe

Macmillan, September 2025 Why? Tim Berners-Lee is almost unique in the history of technology in that his story is not, at heart, a business story. That alone makes him interesting. Most transformative technologies are remembered through the prism of their commercialisation rather than their invention. The internet, however, sits oddly apart: an infrastructure that now underpins vast global markets, but which began life as a modest attempt to help scientists share information

Profile, 2022 Why? I’m fascinated by the history of media - not just as nostalgia, but because every great media shift exposes how technology, culture and power really work together. I suspect that the BBC will eventually be viewed as a distinctly 20th-century institution: one of those vast post-war, mid-century projects designed to impose order, coherence and shared values after the devastation of the world wars. Alongside welfare states, national grids and public housing, i

Vintage, 2023 (first published by Chatto & Windus, 2022) Why? Anne Tyler is an author I've always meant to read, and I grabbed this on a Kindle promotion. Enjoyment factor I'd call this a very quiet novel and at no point felt myself rushing to get back to it, but at the same time, I wasn't compelled to give up. It's a multi-generational saga of an ordinary American family, spanning the late 1940s to the pandemic. The point is that the family members are not close, but neither

Penguin, 1959 (originally published by Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957) Why? A mid-century classic which I'd not read, spotted in a second hand bookshop. I'm intrigued by anything which explores the social re-order following the War - fiction or non-fiction. Enjoyment factor This is a curious one. The protagonist is admirable for wanting to break from his working class roots, but is at the same time overly materially driven and with the tendency to objectify women. How much of thi

Bodley Head, September 2025 Why? Whatever might be said about Nick Clegg, his combination of experience at the top of politics and at the top of a global tech firm is unique, so he must have something to say that's worth a listen. Enjoyment factor This book is heavily co-written (the co-writer is duly acknowledged) and doesn't present the most succinct argument in the world, but nevertheless, it offers some valuable take-aways which haven't been given enough credit amongst a

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024 (paperback 2025) Why? I've been meaning to read Clare Chambers for a while, and I spotted this on...

Penguin Books, 2025 (Viking, 2024) Why? Lots of noise around this: winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025, shortlisted for the...

Picador, 2022 (first published 2004) Why? Tempted by the reviews, I'm keen to read Hollinghurst's new novel Our Evenings but, having...

Faber & Faber, 1950 & 2021 Why? I found this in a charity shop (Hospice in the Weald in Edenbridge) and was immediately intrigued....

Harvard Business Review Press, 2025 Why? Both professionally and personally, I have a deep interest in what makes personalities and...

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...

The Reprint Society London, 1953 (first published by Cassell & Co, 1951) Why? I've read so many books involving the political and social...

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

Little, Brown 2016; Abacus 2017 Why? Topical reading in advance of a weekend in Nice. And because Mary Lovell is a phenomenal...

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

Simon & Schuster, 2024 Why? I'm always interested in what drives successful business people and politicians and this biography (if it can...

Robson Press, 2012 Why? During a discussion about Victorian and Edwardian newspaper proprietors, a friend recommended that I look up...

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