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Most reviewed: The Bolter

12.05.08 Anna Richardson

Last weekend was one of political memoirs, as Cherie Blair’s Speaking for Myself (Little, Brown) and John Prescott’s Prezza (Headline) both hogged the headlines. The former’s serialisation started on Saturday in the Times and the Sun alongside an extensive interview with Blair. The latter was also covered on front page in interview in the Sunday Times, and was described by the newspaper as “the frankest and most rumbustious political memoirs for years”, with Prescott’s revelations about the Blair-Brown relationship highlighted. 

News of Blair’s autobiograpy was picked up by other newspapers on Sunday, with the Observer calling the book “remarkably candid”.

On the literary pages, meanwhile, the wife of current shadow chanceller George Osborne, Frances, stepped into the limelight, as her new book, The Bolter (Virago), attracted the most reviews.

The biography of her great-grandmother Idina Sackville is described variously as a “racy romp underpinned by some impressive research” by Selina Hastings in the Sunday Telegraph, a “compelling” and “engaging” book by Alexander Fuller in the Financial Times, “thin gruel” by Claudia FitzHerbert in the Daily Telegraph and “as tragic and deeply moving as the tale of Paris Hilton” by the Mail on Sunday’s Craig Brown.

Brown asks “what can Idina offer the general reader that Jordan and Jade cannot? Precious little”, although he concedes that “Osborne certainly has stamina: her book is painstakingly researched, and if you want the definitive biography of this silly woman, then you need certainly look no further”.

FitzHerbert is no kinder, finding that Osborne’s writing “veers from slush to menace and back again”, whereas Fuller believes “it requires a writer of skill and sympathy to rescue a biography about a fatuous flapper from irrelevance” and adds: “Osborne is that writer.”

MOST REVIEWED: (9th to 11th May) 

The Bolter by Frances Osborne
(Virago 9781844084814 £18.99)
“An engaging book” Financial Times
“Sometimes the material feels thin” Independent
“Would have done better to leave the Mills & Boon gush alone” Sunday Telegraph
“Osborne certainly has stamina” Mail on Sunday 
“This book is thin gruel” Daily Telegraph

The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore
(Faber 9780571239344 £20)
“Sometimes can’t resist the temptation to aphorism” Daily Telegraph
“Not like much else in contemporary American fiction” Guardian
“Entirely distinctive” Sunday Telegraph
“Her dialogue is often jarringly cute” Observer

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams
(Virago 9781844084869 £12.99)
“Brilliantly paced début” Daily Mail
“A convincing, true voice and it is to Adams’ credit that she sustains it as she does” Financial Times
“Quite a bold first novel” Daily Telegraph

Alfred & Emily by Doris Lessing
(Fourth Estate 9780007233458 £16.99)
“Has a quality at once dreamy and wooden” Financial Times
“Perectly crafted” Observer
“Extremely strange” Sunday Telegraph

Media Anna Richardson Frances Osborne John Prescott Cherie Blair The Bolter

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