PositiveEvening Standard (UK)If Donald Trump seems like a distant, bad dream, Michael Wolff’s pacily readable account of his last months as president warns that we shouldn’t write him off yet ... it uncovers new depths of dysfunction there. Wolff had peerless access to the White House operation and has an enviable ability to put us in the room ... the main players are augmented and at times obscured by a collection of misfits, oddballs, grifters and wackos. The Trump children get few mentions, Melania only two. Even the orange ogre himself is often felt rather than seen, through the reaction of aides to his raging tweets, phone calls and lashings out. Trump’s own brush with Covid is rushed over, and Joe Biden features only as a paper demon to be overcome. There’s no talk of policy because there is no coherent policy, just an obsession with winning, slavish loyalty and media spin. It’s a vivid portrait of a regime governed by chaos and venal favouritism, where trusted staffers could become bitter enemies in a moment ... There are many moments of comedy here ... But it’s not really funny. Wolff chillingly renders the Capitol attack through snapshot quotation from cellphone footage ... Even as we marvel at the madness and the delusion, the awful facts of Trump’s popularity and his counter-intuitive ‘relatability’ remain.
Hermione Lee
PositiveThe Evening Standard (UK)\"Lee’s biography captures Stoppard’s humour and kindness, his voracity for knowledge and his sociability. It throws light on his early life in London and his taste. When analysing the work Lee can get bogged down: the list of influences on Jumpers takes up most of page 236. And the writing could do with a bit more zest and brio. But anyone who wants to know about Stoppard will find most of the answers here. He’s succumbed to biography at last.
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Craig Brown
RaveThe Standard (UK)In this enthralling, impressionistic biography, Craig Brown examines the immense cultural impact of the Beatles 50 years on from their split. Rather than a linear retelling, he reflects and refracts the sometimes disputed legend of the Fab Four through external characters and incidental details, “what if” chapters and personal reminiscences ... It is Brown’s feeling for the revolutionary time and his beady eye for the quirks of the story that make the material sing.
