Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey. This is wonderful. In 1979 Milly and Pip are misfits, part of the Irish diaspora in London who after a brief romance go their separate ways - but out of sight they’re rarely out of mind over the next 40 years. This is an eloquent and wonderful story of lost opportunity and regret, spanning four decades against the landscape of an ever-present London.

A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown. This is a biography of Queen Elizabeth the second, by the author who wrote the wonderful Yes, Ma’am about Princess Margaret and One Two Three Four about The Beatles. Combining biography, essays, cultural history, dream diaries, travelogue and satire, he presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of a woman who was the most public, and the most private.

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