Lifestyle

  • Blair’s firecracker memoir
    Thursday, 2nd September 2010
    The former PM pulls no punches in this rollocking, belligerent tell-all
    Zoe Strimpel
    A JOURNEY BY TONY BLAIR Hutchinson, £25 Very unusually, no review copies were sent out, nor was a serialisation deal struck. So it was amid intense hype and speculation that Tony Blair’s madly anticipated autobiography, A Journey, hit bookshops yesterday. It didn’t disappoint. One of the most delicious assertions in this overall rather delicious tell-all and Brown-bashing is that Blair himself was responsible giving the Bank of England independence – something that Brown had always touted as one of his proudest achievements. “I allowed Gordon to make the statement and indeed gave him every... [Read more]

  • VEXED IN THE CITY
    Thursday, 2nd September 2010
    SOLVING YOUR WORK-LIFE PROBLEMS
    I’d so rather be on the beach than at work DEAR VEXED: I’ve just returned from a three week holiday and I’m swamped at work. Worse, I’m really not feeling like being here. It’s like I can’t remove... [Read more]
  • The angry wannabe queen
    Thursday, 26th August 2010
    All hail another royal corker from Gregory
    Zoe Strimpel
    THE RED QUEEN BY PHILIPPA GREGORY Simon & Schuster, £18.99 MEGA-novelist and Tudor historian Gregory returns to her new series, The Cousins’ War, with an instantly, electrically gripping story... [Read more]
  • GOING OUT
    Thursday, 26th August 2010
    Take a world tour in London bars and clubs
    TIM BADHAM
    IT may still be peak holiday season but in our cosmopolitan capital you can complete a world tour whenever you like by taking a glamorous (if slightly less exotic) journey around London’s more... [Read more]

  • A sorry tale for our times
    Thursday, 29th July 2010
    Jonathan Coe’s hero turns his chronic dulness into tragedy
    THE TERRIBLE PRIVACY OF MAXWELL SIM BY JONATHAN COE Viking, £18.99 by Zoe Strimpel JONATHAN COE represents the pinnacle of British picaresque – his iconic novel about 80s Britain, What a Carve Up,... [Read more]
  • VEXED IN THE CITY
    Thursday, 29th July 2010
    SOLVING YOUR WORK-LIFE PROBLEMS
    While the boss is away, can the employees go off and play? DEAR VEXED: As usual, the office largely clears out over August. Of particular interest is the fact that my boss is going to be away in... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 29th July 2010
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    TOM AIKENS SERVES UP CLOUDY BAY If you’d happened by Parsons Green at the weekend you’d have seen celebrity chef Tom Aikens cooking takeaway dishes in an ad-hoc shack erected by wine producer Cloudy... [Read more]
  • Brett Easton Ellis is back with a chilling seventh novel
    Thursday, 22nd July 2010
    The American Psycho author does not disappoint here
    IMPERIAL BEDROOMS BY BRETT EASTON ELLIS PICADOR, £16.99 BY ZOE STRIMPEL ONCE part of the American literary brat pack of the 1980s that included Jay McInerney and Tama Janowitz, Ellis is in many ways... [Read more]
  • LIFE COACH
    Thursday, 22nd July 2010
    How to cycle to work – in a pencil skirt
    WITH Boris Johnson’s Paris-style bicycle hire scheme launching on 30 July, Londoners who have hitherto been put off by the hassle of owning a bike will see a brave new world of green, healthy travel... [Read more]
  • Drama in the Deep South
    Thursday, 8th July 2010
    Grisham’s first book of short stories is a poignant, thrifty set of superb page-turners
    FORD COUNTY BY JOHN GRISHAM ARROW PAPERBACK, £7.99 BY ZOE STRIMPEL John Grisham, trusty friend of travelling businessmen for 20 years, is the definition of “best-selling author”. But what... [Read more]
  • LIFE COACH
    Thursday, 8th July 2010
    How to have a pooch in the Big Smoke
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    LIVING in the city and working full time might not seem very compatible with dog owning, but it can be done. London’s myriad park spaces make this a better city for dog owning than most. However, if... [Read more]
  • The book that’s got men cracked
    Thursday, 1st July 2010
    City A.M.’s very own Zoe Strimpel spent a year finding out what blokes really think
    EXTRACT WHAT THE HELL IS HE THINKING? ALL THE QUESTIONS YOU’VE EVER ASKED ABOUT MEN ANSWERED BY ZOE STRIMPEL FIG TREE, £8.99 WHY DOES HE BOTHER WITH GRAND GESTURES, THEN FAIL TO FOLLOW THROUGH? EVERY... [Read more]
  • Thriller machine Patterson is back with another gripper
    Thursday, 24th June 2010
    The new series takes on the glamour and peril of a private investigator in trouble
    Zoe Strimpel
    Private by James Patterson Century £18.99 It’s fair to say that James Patterson is to thrillers what McDonalds is to food: a fast-paced outlet for easy, tasty matter. Except, unlike the fast food... [Read more]
  • VEXED IN THE CITY
    Thursday, 24th June 2010
    SOLVING YOUR WORK-LIFE PROBLEMS
    I can’t take any more of my football-mad partner’s antics DEAR VEXED: My boyfriend is a massive England fan. That’s all very well, but he’s been on one big bender throughout the World?Cup and now... [Read more]
  • Picoult strikes gold again
    Thursday, 17th June 2010
    A mentally ill teen is charged with murder in this heartbreaker
    ZOE STRIMPEL
    HOUSE RULES BY JODI PICOULT Hodder, £16.99 For an easy-reading, best-selling author, Picoult tackles some pretty serious issues. Fans will recognise her favoured theme of troubled or ill children,... [Read more]
  • Buy her an engagement ring she’ll love
    Thursday, 17th June 2010
    LIFE COACH
    IT’S not just the cost that can make buying an engagement ring a daunting process. Once you’ve passed the man-mountain of a security guard and entered the museum-like atmosphere of a shop overflowing... [Read more]
  • Office affairs are rarely wise
    Thursday, 3rd June 2010
    A realistic tale of workplace romance that’s far from having a fairytale ending
    IN OFFICE HOURS BY LUCY KELLAWAY Fig Tree, £12.99 **** by Zoe Strimpel STELLA, Bella, Rhys and James are four employees at fictional City-based oil giant Atlantic Energy. Stella is an executive in... [Read more]
  • VEXED IN THE CITY
    Thursday, 3rd June 2010
    SOLVING YOUR WORK-LIFE PROBLEMS
    I’m a lawyer and I want to ask out a trainer at my gym DEAR VEXED: I really fancy a trainer at my gym. I want to ask him out but I’m afraid of what my colleagues will think. Many of them go to the... [Read more]
  • Pullman pulls off Jesus triumph
    Thursday, 27th May 2010
    Fantasy meets the New Testament in a courageous tale that’s sure to make good Christians blink
    THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST BY PHILIP PULLMAN Canongate, £16.99 by Joanna Elias A book about Jesus? Risky business. The son of God has inspired libraries of works on the quest for his... [Read more]
  • Another triumph from the master of literary darkness
    Thursday, 20th May 2010
    Cormac McCarthy’s minimalist new novel started life as a play
    Zoe Strimpel
    THE SUNSET LIMITED BY CORMAC MCCARTHY Picador, £9.99 **** THE iconic American author of the Pulitzer winning The Road (2006) and No Country For Old Men (2005) has a fixation with the grim. Men (in... [Read more]
  • VEXED IN THE CITY
    Thursday, 20th May 2010
    SOLVING YOUR WORK-LIFE PROBLEMS
    I’m fed up with my office pal taking out his temper on me DEAR VEXED: There's a guy at work in the same division as me. We're on the same level as each other and joined the company at the same time.... [Read more]
  • A fraught journey through exile, family and religion
    Thursday, 13th May 2010
    Zoe Strimpel is hooked by this dense, powerful meditation on religion, family and society
    Zoe Strimpel
    NOMAD BY AYAAN HIRSI ALI Simon & Schuster, £12.99 **** AYAAN Hirsi Ali is one of the political world’s most direct speakers – if not its most direct. Even the most controversial commentators balk... [Read more]
  • VEXED IN THE CITY
    Thursday, 13th May 2010
    SOLVING YOUR WORK-LIFE PROBLEMS
    Can I ask my colleague about his home life? DEAR VEXED: There’s a colleague I work really closely with on a number of projects. We get along well, but our relationship is strictly professional.... [Read more]
  • In such skilled hands, intrigue in Stalinist Russia cannot fail to grip
    Thursday, 29th April 2010
    A couple is in serious danger from the secret police in this expert sequel
    Zoe Strimpel
    THE BETRAYAL BY HELEN DUNMORE Fig Tree, £18.99 Dunmore is one of the literary establishment’s most respected practitioners: she’s a poet and an Orange Prize short-listed author. Her work isn’t light... [Read more]
  • Inside the tortured mind of a murderer
    Thursday, 22nd April 2010
    A complex, crisply elegant thriller explores the intersection between fantasy and crime
    Zoe Strimpel
    BLUEEYEDBOY BY JOANNE HARRIS Doubleday, £18.99 THE colour of murder is blue, he thinks. Ice-blue, smokescreen blue, frostbite, post-mortem, body-bag blue. It is also his colour in so many ways,... [Read more]
  • City insider entertains again with a tale of international skulduggery
    Thursday, 15th April 2010
    The second thriller by the entrepreneur behind the ADVFN website contains some disturbing truths
    THE TWAIN MAXIM BY CLEM CHAMBERS No Exit, £6.99 by Zoe Strimpel “A MINE is a hole in the ground with a fool at the bottom and a crook at the top,” says a character called Samuel Clemens at the... [Read more]
  • The bankers who saw the crash coming, and bet on it
    Thursday, 25th March 2010
    The author of the Wall Street exposé Liar’s Poker has written an analysis of the credit crunch that stands out from the pack
    THE BIG SHORT BY MICHAEL LEWIS Allen Lane, £25 by Zoe Strimpel THE Big Short comes late in the day, at least in terms of the publishing frenzy that (inevitably) followed the financial crisis. Indeed... [Read more]
  • A gritty tale of love and intrigue in 1930s London
    Thursday, 18th March 2010
    DJ Taylor has created a noirish saga set in the Great Depression
    AT THE CHIME OF A CITY CLOCK BY DJ TAYLOR Constable, £12.99 by Zoe Strimpel “If he had looked back, he would have seen her walk off not in the direction of the bus stop but away east towards... [Read more]
  • How to pick a winner at Cheltenham
    Thursday, 18th March 2010
    LIFE COACH
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    I’m going to Cheltenham with my company, and I’ve never bet on the horses before. What advice do you have? Jasper, 24, trader EVEN if you’re a betting novice, you’ll hardly be starved of... [Read more]
  • A haunting tale of cat and mouse as a child takes on a serial killer
    Thursday, 11th March 2010
    A first-time author’s deeply felt account of a boy seeking justice against the odds
    BLACKLANDS BY BELINDA BAUER Corgi, £7.99 by Zoe Strimpel EXMOOR dripped with dirty bracken, rough, colourless grass, prickly gorse, and last year’s heather, so black it looked as if wet fire had... [Read more]
  • A psychological masterpiece set amid the beauty of rural France
    Thursday, 4th March 2010
    The author of The Road Home has delivered once more
    Zoe Strimpel
    TRESPASS BY ROSE TREMAIN Chatto and Windus, £17.99 ROSE TREMAIN has proved herself time and again to be a novelist of astonishing skill, verve and imagination. Her latest outing was the Orange Prize-... [Read more]
  • A brilliant tale about the feminist revolution, the 1970s and today
    Thursday, 18th February 2010
    Amis has returned to his old fireworks
    ZOE STRIMPEL
    The baited breath that awaits each new book from our most polarising, arguably brilliant living writer, is palpable. Yet in recent years that breath has been let out in a deflated sigh rather than a... [Read more]
  • When you liberate your employees, productivity and profit will follow
    Thursday, 28th January 2010
    Letting workers get on with their jobs and listening to what they say is the way to help them flourish
    FREEDOM INC BY BRIAN M CARNEY AND ISAAC GETZ Crown Business Publishing, New York, £18.99 **** WE LIVE in a society in which we’re always watched – not just by the state, but in the workplace, too.... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 28th January 2010
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    TURNER AT TATE BRITAIN There are just a few more days to catch Tate Britain’s superb exhibition Turner & the Masters, examining the influence Turner’s artistic forebears played on his career, and... [Read more]
  • From Russia with love – and money
    Monday, 25th January 2010
    A rags-to-riches tale of a woman and her love for a Russian oligarch is a great winter evening read
    THE OLIGARCH'S WIFE By ANNA BLUNDY Preface, £12.99 Anna Blundy, an impossibly glamorous-looking journalist and daughter of the late foreign correspondent Peter Blundy, knows her subject well. A... [Read more]
  • How a wedding-phobic divorcee came to fall in love with marriage
    Thursday, 14th January 2010
    A best-selling author tells how she made peace with holy matrimony
    Zoe Strimpel
    COMMITTED BY ELIZABETH GILBERT Bloomsbury, £12.99 ELIZABETH GILBERT shot to fame with her memoir Eat, Pray, Love – it was such a hit that a film version starring Julia Roberts is set for release... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 14th January 2010
    ZOE STRIMPEL
    ICE SCULPTURE COMES TO CANARY WHARF If it’s a winter challenge that combines skill, beauty and speed, it must be ice-sculpting. Five teams from Europe descend on the Wharf this week to compete... [Read more]
  • John Irving’s complicated, hostile America hits the mark once again
    Thursday, 7th January 2010
    History meets strife, love, family and death in a snowy US epic that ambitiously spans half a century
    LAST NIGHT IN TWISTED RIVER BY JOHN IRVING Bloomsbury, £12.99 **** ANOTHER epic north American novel set amid the woods and snow from the author of The Cider House Rules, this book begins in a... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 7th January 2010
    ZOE STRIMPEL
    JUST OPENED: THE CARETAKER Jonathan Pryce stars in this hotly anticipated rendering of Harold Pinter’s sixth play.?It’s the late Pinter at his best, in a spare, super-tense story revolving around a... [Read more]
  • What to read this Christmas
    Thursday, 17th December 2009
    From high-brow to low-brow, theories behind the credit crunch to war history, 2010’s been a fascinating year in books
    Thrillers THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST BY STIEG LARSSON Maclehose, £18.99 The third and final novel in the late Swedish crime writer’s hugely popular Millennium Trilogy – all three books... [Read more]
  • A tale of betrayal and backstabbing in vicious Westminster-on-the-Tiber
    Thursday, 26th November 2009
    Echoes of British politics make Robert Harris's latest a gripping read
    Jeremy Hazlehurst
    LUSTRUMBY ROBERT HARRISHutchinson, £18.99 ROBERT Harris is the author of best-selling historical novels such as Fatherland and Enigma. In 2003, he wrote the first of his books based in Ancient... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 26th November 2009
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    THE GRUFFALO AT THE APOLLO THEATRE Families looking for a child-friendly Christmas show without having to resort to watching I’m A Celebrity rejects in panto could plump for a stage adaptation... [Read more]
  • Black swans, blondes and other shaggy dog stories
    Thursday, 12th November 2009
    Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell's latest book is a thought-provoking and absorbing compendium of fashionable ideas
    WHAT THE DOG SAWBY MALCOLM GLADWELLPenguin, £12.99 WHETHER Malcolm Gladwell – the author of Blink, the Tipping Point and Outliers – is really the “the world’s most... [Read more]
  • Evil festers under a glass dome
    Thursday, 5th November 2009
    Stephen King is back with a tale of good and evil with a political point to make. It both annoys and thrills
    Zoe Strimpel
    UNDER THE DOMEBY STEPHEN KINGHodder & Stoughton £19.99THE MASTER of the slow-burn thriller about the bad things that happen when people are trapped together in one place has found another... [Read more]
  • A second dose of the fabulous freakish truth
    Thursday, 29th October 2009
    Why prostitutes' salaries have fallen, what happens when monkeys learn about money and that's just the beginning
    SUPERFREAKONOMICSBY STEPHEN DUBNER AND STEVEN LEVITTPENGUIN, £20.00 WRITING a sequel to one of best-selling pop economics books of the last decade was always going to be hard. And it took... [Read more]
  • Heroes of sport that touched England's great cricket legend
    Thursday, 22nd October 2009
    Sir Ian Botham has written an uplifting account of the personalities that made his career. It's a sports-buff's must have
    MY SPORTING HEROESBY IAN BOTHAMMainstream, £18.99 WHEN AN icon such as Sir Ian Botham lists you among his sporting heroes, then you know you have a story to tell. Fresh from the success of his... [Read more]
  • Madoff's fraud was driven by pure revenge
    Thursday, 15th October 2009
    The fraud of the century was all not about greed, says a new book, but a man proving that he had power
    Zoe Strimpel
    THE BELIEVERSBY ADAM LEBOROrion, £18.99Budapest-based journalist Adam LeBor’s book about the world’s greatest fraudster comes on the heels of American investigative journalist Erin... [Read more]
  • How to make a career part of a happy life
    Thursday, 8th October 2009
    A French sage tells women that a succesful career needn't get in the way of pleasure
    WOMEN, WORK AND THE ART OF SAVOIR FAIREBY MIREILLE GUILIANOSimon and Schuster, £12.99**** BEFORE WRITING the bestseller, French Women Don’t Get Fat, Guiliano was a top business woman... [Read more]
  • Violence, misogyny and computer hacking in a dark Swedish thriller
    Thursday, 1st October 2009
    Best-selling trilogy featuring a great female hero comes to a cracking finish, writes Zoe Strimpel
    Zoe Strimpel
    THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NESTBY STIEG LARSSONQuercus, £18.99****THE THIRD in the Millennium trilogy, this is perhaps the only one of best-selling Swedish thriller writer Stieg... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 1st October 2009
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    LOVE’S LABOURS LOST AT THE GLOBEShakespeare’s popular comedy rounds off the 2009 season at London’s traditional outdoor theatre. The show is a revival of artistic director Dominic... [Read more]
  • At 89, the champion of horse thrillers has finally slowed down
    Thursday, 24th September 2009
    A bookie winds up in a grave danger in Francis's new thriller, but it's hard to care
    Zoe Strimpel
    EVEN MONEYBY DICK FRANCIS AND FELIX FRANCISMichael Joseph, £18.99 THE action opens at a racecourse – where else? Ned Talbot, an independent bookie, is at Royal Ascot drawing to the end of... [Read more]
  • THE JOY OF A GOOD STOVE
    Thursday, 24th September 2009
    THE LONG LAUNCH...
    JEFF GALVINWE FOLLOW THE GALVIN BROTHERS AS THEY COUNT DOWN TO THE OPENING OF THEIR NEW CITY RESTAURANT A GOOD STOVE is the heart of any restaurant, so you just have to make sure it’s right.... [Read more]
  • Brown is back, with silly plots, codes and terrible prose back
    Thursday, 17th September 2009
    The Da Vinci Code author still can't write, but nothing can stop this being a best-seller
    THE LOST SYMBOLBY DAN BROWNBantam Press, £18.99 WITH AN initial print run of a million copies in the UK alone, and 6.5m worldwide, there is no doubt that Dan Brown’s latest – the... [Read more]
  • The definitive Madoff book, with panache
    Thursday, 10th September 2009
    A journalist examines what drove people to trust the biggest crook in American finance
    MADOFF: THE MAN WHO STOLE $65MBY ERIN ARVEDLUNDPenguin, £9.99 ERIN ARVEDLUND has written this book with relish – and not a small amount of “I told you so”. This is because, as... [Read more]
  • Faulks takes aim at London, the City and Dickens
    Thursday, 3rd September 2009
    Middle England's favourite writer looks at a nation in the grip of a financial meltdown
    A WEEK IN DECEMBERBY SEBASTIAN FAULKSHutchinson, £18.99 WITH HIS interest in the historical past and his solid, straightforward prose, Sebastian Faulks is the bard of Middle England. His most... [Read more]
  • Beneath the bonnet of the geek's geek
    Thursday, 20th August 2009
    A collection of writing from the scruffy one from TV's Top Gear hints at hidden depths
    CAR FEVERBY JAMES MAYHodder & Stoughton, £18.99 HE might not have quite such a high profile as his co-presenters on the BBC’s Top Gear programme, but James May is the most likeable of... [Read more]
  • The cut-throat world of New York's super-rich
    Thursday, 13th August 2009
    A well-connected Manhattan journalist has written a deliciously juicy novel about the city's hedge funders and their wives
    HEDGE FUND WIVESBY TATIANA BONCOMPAGNIHarper Collins, £6.99 IT may sound a little out of date – after all, we’re so over hedgies and their failed fortunes. Except the New York hedge... [Read more]
  • How the Russian oligarchs came to rise and reign in boomtime London
    Thursday, 6th August 2009
    A gripping chronicle of the decadence, danger and sheer power that defined a phenomenon
    LONDONGRADBY MARK HOLLINGSWORTH AND STEWART LANSLEYFourth Estate, £12.99ONE of the most visible signs of the times over the past few years has been the increasing Russification of London. The... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 6th August 2009
    ZOE STRIMPEL
    JAZZ AT VIVAT BACCHUSClerkenwell dwellers not content with food and fine wine should pop along to Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon this Saturday, where jazz pianist Jason Thompson (who has entertained the... [Read more]
  • How to find love? Try giving up sex
    Thursday, 30th July 2009
    A year-long experiment in chastity yields plenty of fodder for reflection and some home truths about society and intimacy
    CHASTENEDBY HEPHZIBAH ANDERSONChatto & Windus, £12.99 I FEEL a little bad for Hephzibah Anderson. She’s gone ahead and voiced the doleful narrative of a many a well-heeled, well-... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 30th July 2009
    ZOE STRIMPEL
    JAMIE’S ITALIAN IN CANARY WHARF Oliver’s hit restaurant chain comes to Canary Wharf, opening next Wednesday as a prime example of the area’s up and coming food scene. Expect pasta... [Read more]
  • Best beach reads
    Thursday, 23rd July 2009
    Bring a suitcase: you're going to get through these books so fast you'll need one. We pick a thriller-heavy set of the year's best reads
    MY SOUL TO TAKE by Yrsa SigurdardottirHodder, £11.99This Icelandic thriller is cooler than most from the get go. Where else could you find a ballsy Reykjavik lawyer with little time for... [Read more]
  • Mixing business with glamour and killer heels
    Thursday, 16th July 2009
    The tale of the brains behind Jimmy Choo doesn't always focus on her stiletto-sharp commercial brain
    Zoe Strimpel
    THE TOWERING WORLD OF JIMMY CHOO  By Lauren Goldstein Crowe and Sagra Maceira de RosanBLOOMSBURY £18.99 PART business manual and part snoopy fashion reportage, the tale of super-brand... [Read more]
  • OUT OF OFFICE
    Thursday, 16th July 2009
    TIMOTHY BARBER
    JERUSALEM AT THE ROYAL COURTJez Butterworth, who has received great acclaim for his previous Royal Court plays including Mojo, The Night Heron and The Winterling, is returning to the Sloane Square... [Read more]