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 Frank gives readers a rare taste of what it was really like to be inside the Third Reich. Of course most of us have heard stories of Hitler’s quest for world domination, and unfortunately we’ve all heard stories about the death camps, but Frank’s novel falls somewhere in between. The story is more of what the officers endured on a regular basis.
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 For the Birds is a charming, engrossing story that keeps the reader guessing throughout, combining fast-paced plotting, and high quality thematics, with fun, easy to follow narration and a rich, enticing setting. It's hard to read this without being charmed by the real affection that the characters have or develop towards one another.
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 Certainly the mystery that surrounds and motivates Jonathan Pryde and the poor 'lost souls' that inhabit his castle, drives the story rapidly towards its conclusion, but this is more than simply a story of suspense. The novel touches on some serious thematics such as the relationship between art and life, on both ethics and philosophical responsibility, and ultimately, on how we create meaning in our lives...
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 David James does a fabulous job of bringing Becky Sharp’s story to life. She is both absolutely detestable and endearing all in the same. He pulls you into her tumultuous and humorous past. This heartbreaking past also gives insight into what has led this woman into such a selfish and irresponsible lifestyle
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 For fans and admirers of Boris Vian, a man of myriad talents, this is a welcome publication. An elegantly produced booklet, consisting of red lettering on a marbled cream cover and art paper between, it is well worthy of its subject.
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 There is a sense in this story of how Russia was changing; and it is clear as well that Odoevsky approved of the change and trusted the younger generation. What’s noteworthy also, besides a fetchingly emphatic eulogy to wine, is the artistic way in which the story is told: through an assemblage of letters and conversations. Not entirely an epistolary tale, but close.
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 And this novel, Bloch’s most famous, encapsulates what is certainly his main theme: human beings’ capacity for violence, the inexplicable nature of evil. Bloch wrote about this with black humour, an acute grasp of abnormal psychology, a storyteller’s art. And he entertained, as all good writers do.
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 Let me come clean and admit that I didn’t quite follow the plot; indeed, in places I found it quite perplexing. But I read on because I was held by le Carre’s world, precarious and peril-ridden. He writes at one point that ‘silence, not gunfire, was the natural element of the approaching enemy’ and he uses this element too.
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 A couple of reasons for gratitude, to end. Firstly to Antony Melville for a superb translation, at once joyfully idiomatic and full of delightfully complex syntax. The second Thank You is because The Philosophers’ Madonna has been a jaunty stimulus to seek out the work, and explore the worlds, of Carlo Emilio Gadda, a writer hitherto unknown to me.
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 The blurb on the back says it all: “This is David Barnes’ first and last book.” That David ever came to be a poet is a kind of miracle in itself. He’s an unlikely candidate. A ward of the state, placed in institutions and physically and sexually abused - there was little likelihood that he would become a functioning adult, let alone a loving one who could have a happy relationship, a much-loved son a self-deprecating sense of humour – or a writing career.
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