Category Archives: Books

Wonderful Wodehouse

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Tim Newman

One of the few advantages of being stuck in Lagos traffic for over an hour each working day is I get to read an awful lot, and thanks to my newly procured Kindle, I have a never-ending supply of books, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | 6 Comments

The Millenium Trilogy: A Review

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Tim Newman

Back in spring 2010 I read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, having heard that it was pretty good.   I had intended to review it, not least because I promised this chap that I would give him my … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | 19 Comments

Why Travel Writers Should Avoid Making Political Remarks

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Tim Newman

Extracted from Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux, an American writer. Page 368: All this order, prosperity and efficiency the Vietnamese had found for themselves after decades of war, in spite of us; we could take no … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | 13 Comments

Sakhalin’s Literary History

Posted on October 7, 2008 by Tim Newman

It is well known that the remarkable author and playwright Anton Chekhov undertook an arduous journey from St. Petersburg to Sakhalin Island in order to study the conditions in the Tsarist penal colony. What is less well known is that many … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Sakhalin | 6 Comments

Andrew Meier’s Visit to Sakhalin

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Tim Newman

A couple of years ago I bought a book called Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After The Fall by Andrew Meier, and American journalist who spent 1996 to 2001 as Time magazine’s Moscow correspondent.  For one reason or another I … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Sakhalin | 1 Comment

Obsessed? Me?

Posted on March 24, 2006 by Tim Newman

Books I have read over the past year: Berlin: The Downfall, 1945, by Antony Beevor Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky Among the Russians, by Colin Thubron The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, by Peter Hopkirk … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Russia | 3 Comments

Night of Stone and Russian Trains

Posted on March 14, 2006 by Tim Newman

If you scroll down a bit, you will see from that clever software plugin that I am currently reading Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia by Catherine Merridale.  I’m only one page in, but already a passage has … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Russia | 10 Comments