Alan Moore’s first short story collection covers 35 years of what The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s author calls his “ludicrous imaginings”. Across these nine stories, some of which can barely be called short, there’s a wonderful commitment to fantastical events in mundane towns. His old comic fans might enjoy What We Can Know About Thunderman the most, a spectacular tirade against a superhero industry corrupted from such lofty, inventive beginnings. The World: A Family History Montefiore’s novel approach is based on the argument that the family is the essential unit of human existence – even in the age of the iPhone, artificial intelligence, robotics and space travel. He uses the stories of multiple families over dozens of generations, living on every continent and in every era, to tell the human story. To be fair he doesn't mention Scotland much either and the only references to Wales are as the birthplace of David Lloyd George and T.E. Lawrence. As an Irish person I was interested to hear what he had to say about my own little island. I thought his representation of the Cromwellian period was even-handed enough but then we seemed to totally disappear from the narrative even as it became increasingly more Anglocentric.

I am not sure what the purpose is of trying to consolidate history of all earth in a single book. Is it a bit like climbing mountains – or buildings – to show he can do it? I felt at many times during the expedition that this was essentially a vanity project. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. The novel is hugely romantic. His ease with the setting and historical characters is masterly. The book maintains a tense pace. Uniquely terrifying. Heartrending. Engrossing. " The ScotsmanI have mixed feelings about this type of History as it pays so little attention to the great majority of people who have ever lived, though the figures at the top who make the important decisions are often fascinating figures in their own right and a lot of social/economic history can be deathly dull and of little interest to the regular reader. In summary then, PMS’s romp is fun and helps depict an interconnected world since the beginning of history. But in jumping around like an energetic grasshopper he makes it quite difficult to follow, and you will need to read a more considered history of any particular period, to make real sense of it.

The book is written in a curious mixture of styles. There is the tabloid argot (“Philadelphos supposedly kept nine paramours, of whom the star was a badass chariot-racing Greek beauty Belistiche.”). And there is a prolific use of genital vocabulary which would never have seen light of day in tabloid publications. But there is also a slightly exhibitionist use of rare words. “Bertie, the twenty-five-year-old pinguid Prince of Wales”, for example. And the Arab world is “fissiparous”. At times, this becomes intrusive and obfuscatory. One chapter contains “frizelate” or various forms of it, in several instances. Neither my collection of dictionaries, nor ChatGPT, recognise this word, although it would seem, from the context, to have some sort of sexual connotation. I wouldn’t have persevered with it but for the fact that this is all history, it really happened, which makes it sufficiently interesting that I managed to read it from cover to cover, though in fairly small doses, so it took me almost two months to finish it. Not just a thumpingly good read, but also essentially a story of human fragility and passions, albeit taking place under the intimidating shadow of a massive Stalinist portico." The National Others are lesser-known: Hongwu, who began life as a beggar and founded the Ming dynasty; Kamehameha, conqueror of Hawaii; Zenobia, Arab empress who defied Rome; King Henry of Haiti; Lady Murasaki, first female novelist; Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan pirate-queen. Here are not just conquerors and queens but prophets, charlatans, actors, gangsters, artists, scientists, doctors, tycoons, lovers, wives, husbands and children.Hopelessly romantic and hopelessly moving. A mix of lovestory thriller and historical fiction. Engrossing." The Observer This is one large book that begins with mankinds emergence and ends with Biden's election and the Trump MAGA's attempt to overturn that. One element of this study which I think is very valuable is its concomitant examination of many regions, showing the apposition of events in North and South America, Europe, East and West Asia and, at times, the Pacific. Conventional histories generally tend to be based around a nation or region, and it is useful to remember that, at any one time, life was progressing in many different places on the earth. This work attempts to avoid that oversight, although, of course, some regions are overlooked as we dart about the globe. It would simply not be possible to be completely comprehensive. And at times, one theatre and set of actors is dismissed rather abruptly, to be replaced by another. But it is a valuable development at least to show major concurrent Asian, European and North and South American events. This, however, is a separate issue from doing that for the whole span of history. There’s probably no better person to write a biography of “TV talking head, pop culture conceptualist, entrepreneur and bullshitter” Tony Wilson than Paul Morley, a man who formed an esoteric writing career in his Manchester orbit. Still, Morley immediately understands the pitfalls of this enterprise: he calls Wilson “beautiful, foolish, dogmatic, charming. Impossible.” This moving portrait of Manchester from the late 1970s onwards is richer, more complicated and thoughtful than mere biography; a history, of sorts, of a city long since passed into memory.

A staggering achievement. Simon Sebag Montefiore has given us a tremendous gift: a pulsingly readable world history through the millennia and from one end of the globe to the other.” —Sir Simon Schama, author of The Story of the Jews In all honestly, nothing I say can possibly do justice to the immeasurable hard work of the author and every single person involved in bringing this book to life. I feel nothing but profound respect and admiration for this unbelievably relevant and crucial book, even more so because, despite its intimidating length and density, it is full of good humour. Aan het einde van die dunne dikbedrukte 1.400 pagina's overheerste bij mij dankbaarheid. Ik leef in een zeldzaam vreedzaam tijdperk. Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. Regardless of my personal reading experience, it would be a crime not to mention the extraordinary and out-of-this-world research behind this book. Spanning millennia and continents, it covers the history of the world as we know it from the perspective of prominent families, some more well-known than others, but all of them fascinating nonetheless. I was mesmerised by this comprehensive look at world history and ultimately saddened to realise that, throughout the years, conflict, death and the suffering of millions of humans usually begin with the greed of a few.

Unsurprisingly, power has often adhered to families as megalomaniacs who are stunned by their mortality seek to evade it by resort to dynasty. So a family focus is logical in those instances; however, there are as many, or more, instances where power passes outside the family. So it is questionable whether there really is a family-focus. One interesting aspect to the family-focus, however, comes in his extending biographical details to notable individuals’ childhood and their un-notable forebears. This is the sort of thing that one finds in a biography, but not so often in a wide-ranging history. I must say, though, that, having read the whole book, I gained little sense of “the capacity for joy and kindness” or “ the faces of love and the devotion of family.” Somewhat off-putting was the number of times Montefiore’s own family popped unexpectedly into view. As part of this trend, we are told of his own schoolboy interview of Margaret Thatcher, and her apparent reaction to his cheek by determining never again to be subjected to such an interview. There is a little vain self-aggrandisement to this.