Alice Jolly

3 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Christian House |Philip Hensher |Alice Jolly |Matthew Dennison

Reading Robert Ferguson’s fascinating history of the experiences of the Norwegians during the five years of German occupation between 1940 and 1945 – a collage of resistance, collaboration and the gray areas in between – I was reminded of the remarks of two Norwegian nonagenarians. In 2011, I interviewed Gunnar Sonsteby, a hero of Norway’s resistance movement, for The Spectator.

4 weeks ago | thespectator.com | Lisa Hilton |Arabella Byrne |Alice Jolly |Leyla Sanai

On November 18, 1910, 300 women marched on the Houses of Parliament to demand the right to vote. Their protest was met with shameless brutality: punches, kicks, beatings and sexual assault from policemen and male bystanders.

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Alice Jolly |Chloë Ashby |Christian House |Lisa Hilton

In May 1940, as the Nazis invade Belgium, the residents of a sedate apartment block in Place Brugmann, Brussels, wake to find that their longtime neighbors, the Raphaëls, have disappeared. Alice Austen uses this moment as the starting point for her subtle debut novel, 33 Place Brugmann, about how a diverse group of Belgians react to the Nazi occupation. She tells her story in snapshots, writing in the multiple first-person voices of those who remain at 33 Place Brugmann and those who flee.

1 month ago | shelf-awareness.com | Alice Jolly |Curtis Sittenfeld |Jojo Moyes |Elinor Lipman

Among the noteworthy reading recommendations in this week's issue, we spotlight Markus Zusak's moving and vulnerable memoir, Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth), about the canine members of his family and the challenge of writing about them. In the "lighthearted, humor-filled" Change of Heart, romance author Falon Ballard fabricates a whimsical small town where true love is crucial for one single-minded lawyer to get home to Manhattan. And YA author Emily J.

1 month ago | the-tls.co.uk | Suzi Feay |David Annand |Alice Jolly |Randy Boyagoda

There is a fashion for leaving central characters and narrators nameless, presenting reviewers with a headache. It is hard to avoid clunky, repetitive periphrasis (“the narrator”, “the student”, “the lover”), and there remains the nagging fear that you’ve missed the one reference or allusion. Yet the device can be powerful. While a name implies stability and consistency over time, when applied to the psyche it can be akin to putting a label on a whirlwind.