Hints and tips:
...Love Marriageby Monica Ali, Virago £18.99/Scribner $27.99 It’s nearly 20 years since Ali burst on to the literary scene with her debut Brick Lane....
...John Banville (having shed his crime writing alias “Benjamin Black”) sets up a classic murder mystery with his latest novel, then expertly turns it on its head....
...The Ecliptic, by Benjamin Wood, Scribner, RRP£14.99, 480 pages...
...Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century, by Paul Kildea, Allen Lane, RRP£30 Kildea has done everyone a service by refusing to allow moral judgments to cloud his biographical brief....
...A Quiet Adjustment By Benjamin Markovits Faber £12.99, 240 pages Last year Texan-in-London Markovits brought out Imposture, the first in a trilogy about Byron....
...In the 18th century the model of the type was Benjamin Franklin; in the 20th, it was Bob Dylan. In the middle came Mark Twain....
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