About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Simon Shuster
Rave The Telegraph (UK) \"As Simon Shuster’s superb wartime biography shows, the Ukrainian president rose to an unimaginable occasion, yet criticism is on the horizon ... Shuster avoids canonising St Volodymyr of Kyiv. Part of that saintly reputation, he points out, is because Zelensky has used emergency decrees to shut down independent TV channels, meaning that not much criticism gets aired ... After several books on the Ukraine war that have suffered from haste of publication, this is the best so far: an elegant account of the invasion’s first year as seen by those in the very eye of the storm. Publication deadlines, though, mean that it doesn’t really cover how Ukraine’s fortunes have worsened in recent months. Since then, the summer counter-offensive is widely perceived to have failed, and with Donald Trump possibly returning to the White House in November, Kyiv’s weapons tap could be turned off.\
Christopher Miller
Positive The Telegraph (UK) [Miller] brings a seasoned, personal perspective to his book ... Where this book may divide readers is in the large amount of space it allocates to events in Ukraine pre-war ... True, many readers – this reviewer included – will relish learning more about the run-up to the conflict, and the fabric of the society it tore apart ... However, the book does have the feel of a work already in progress before the war with some wartime chapters speedily bolted on ... Occasionally, Miller’s otherwise competent prose also shows deadline fatigue, lapsing into cliché that editors should have fixed.
Mark O'Connell
Rave The Telegraph (UK) O’Connell, a Dublin-based journalist with a brilliantly wry style, seeks to entertain rather than scare. This is, instead, a light-hearted look around the World’s End; the Book of Revelation with a Bill Bryson touch ... For all his light touch, O’Connell does wear his politics slightly heavily. Much as I sniggered, I yearned at times for proper grillings of his subjects, rather than just sketches of comedy Right-wing villains ... if coronavirus does prove to be the apocalypse, buy this book first (if your shops are still open). At least you’ll die laughing.