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Diane Banks
Jul 10, 20232 min read
Father by Elizabeth von Armin
British Library Women Writers, 2020 (first published 1931) Why? I’m always interested in examinations of women living unconventional...
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Diane Banks
Jun 18, 20231 min read
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
Penguin Essentials, 2015 (originally published by André Deutsch, 1987) Why? Because it tells the story of a woman living a life...
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Diane Banks
May 13, 20232 min read
The Go-Between by LP Hartley
Penguin Modern Classics, 2000 (originally published by Hamish Hamilton, 1953) Why? As the twentieth century becomes history, its...
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Diane Banks
Oct 16, 20227 min read
The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe, Britain's Greatest Press Baron by Andrew Roberts
Simon & Schuster, 2022 If Ukraine is the first TikTok war, the Arab Spring the first Twitter war and Vietnam the first TV war, then World...
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Diane Banks
Aug 16, 20224 min read
Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain by Hannah Rose Woods
WH Allen, 2022 Using the current culture wars as a starting point, in Rule, Nostalgia, historian Hannah Rose Woods takes us on a...
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Diane Banks
Jul 31, 20223 min read
The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Grove Atlantic, 1966 (original); this edition Virago, 2003 Published in 1966 and spanning the years 1945-1965 in the entertainment...
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Diane Banks
Jun 5, 20225 min read
Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture by Justine Picardie
Faber & Faber, 2021 Following her acclaimed biography of Coco Chanel in 2010, writer and former Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Justine...
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Diane Banks
May 19, 20224 min read
Who Are We Now? Stories of Modern England by Jason Cowley
Picador, March 2022 The “Condition of England Question” is widely attributed to Thomas Carlyle, dating it back to the mid-nineteenth...
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Diane Banks
Apr 18, 20225 min read
The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Art of Disruption by Sebastian Mallaby
Allen Lane, January 2022 Many of the household names of the twenty-first century – Apple, Google, Uber, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Twitter –...
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Diane Banks
Mar 20, 20225 min read
Quant by Mary Quant
V&A Publishing, 2018 (originally Cassell & Co, 1966) I picked up this copy of Mary Quant’s autobiography – originally published in 1966...
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Diane Banks
Jan 23, 20224 min read
Lily by Rose Tremain
Chatto & Windus, 2021 My interest in Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital - which opened in 1741 and was operational in some form until the...
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Diane Banks
Jan 9, 20223 min read
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
Paperback 2021, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (first published in Australia 2019, Allen & Unwin) This was a well-timed read in that it’s set over...
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Diane Banks
Jan 2, 20221 min read
Silverview by John le Carré
Penguin, October 2021 I first encountered John le Carré, aka David Cornwell, on a conference call shortly after starting at Hodder &...
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Diane Banks
Dec 27, 20215 min read
The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain by Tristram Hunt
Allen Lane Books, September 2021 A biography is shaped by the identity, interests and experiences of its author as much as by its...
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Diane Banks
Dec 12, 20214 min read
Break the Internet: In Pursuit of Influence by Olivia Yallop
Scribe, November 2021 I’ve written recently about how so-called “influencer culture” should be seen as a microcosm of wider trends and...
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Diane Banks
Oct 25, 20214 min read
The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King
Chatto & Windus, 2021 Best known for his books Brunelleschi’s Dome, Leonardo and the Last Supper and Michaelangelo and the Pope’s...
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Diane Banks
Sep 19, 20212 min read
The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
Penguin Modern Classics, 2013 I’ve been meaning to pick up this twentieth century classic for years and, in line with expectations, it...
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Diane Banks
Sep 18, 20213 min read
TikTok Boom by Chris Stokel-Walker
Canbury Press, 2021 It’s been difficult to ignore the rise of TikTok over the last couple of years, though for many its significance...
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Diane Banks
Jul 27, 20212 min read
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Bloomsbury Books, 2021 This international bestselling debut is pitched around a pivotal scene in the book, whereby babysitter Emira...
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Diane Banks
Jun 27, 20213 min read
Caesar in Kent by Francis T Vine
Unspecified, 1886 I came upon this volume in my capacity as a trustee of the Eden Valley Museum, a social history museum in Edenbridge,...
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