Sunday Best: 80 Great Books from a Lifetime of Reviews

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A collection of John Carey’s greatest, wisest, and wittiest reviews—amassed over a lifetime of writing Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION CULTURAL HISTORY The Mediterranean in History edited by David Abulafia, 2003 The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism Stonehenge Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind Vauxhall Gardens: A History A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after the First World War Private Words: Letters and Diaries from the Second World War In the Fifties The Greatest Shows on Earth: A History of the Circus A Great Feast of Light: Growing Up Irish in the Television Age Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain IQ: The Brilliant Idea that Failed The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies: Almost Always Do Better Leadville: A Biography of the A40 SCIENCE The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution Darwin’s Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science You’re Looking Very Well: The Surprising Nature of Getting Old The Science of Love and Betrayal Laughter: A Scientific Investigation Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour that Changed the World Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End MEMOIRS The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier No Voice from the Hall: Early Memories of a Country House Snooper Gypsies: An English History Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future that Disappeared Family Secrets Swimming with My Father: A Memoir Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense Publisher Untold Stories Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Naked at Lunch: The Adventures of a Reluctant Nudist Ahead of the Class: How an Inspiring Headmistress Gave Children Back Their Future Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History Alamein to Zem Zem ANTHROPOLOGY Feast: Why Humans Share Food The Reinvention of Humanity: A Story of Race, Sex, Gender and the Discovery of Culture Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle Letters to Lily on How the World Works BIOGRAPHY The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of a Jamaican Slave Who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist The World of Samuel Beckett, 1906–1946 Eric Gill Betjeman: The Bonus of Laughter Eileen: The Making of George Orwell The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome Furious Interiors: Wales, R.S. Thomas and God LITERATURE The Poet’s Tale: Chaucer and the Year that Made the Canterbury Tales Shakespeare’s Language Shakespeare’s Wife The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Eight: 1856–1858 The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, 2 vols The Short Sharp Life of T.E. Hulme Robert Graves and the White Goddess, 1940–1985 Robert Graves: Life on the Edge Robert Graves: Collected Writings on Poetry The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956–1963 Faulks on Fiction: The Secret Life of the Novel The Good Soldier Švejk BACK TO NATURE Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature Orchard: A Year in England’s Eden Owl Sense The Spade as Mighty as the Sword: The Story of World War Two’s Dig for Victory Campaign Bertie, May and Mrs Fish: Country Memories of Wartime Running for the Hills: A Family Story MIND BENDERS A Short Treatise of the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of the Universe The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind VEGETABLE GARDENING Vegetable Gardening