I reviewed Andrew Miller's excellent new novel The Land in Winter, set during the Big Freeze of 1962-3, in the TLS

I wrote about the strange dream that was 1970s TV, and falling for James Bond when ITV screened Goldfinger for the first time. Read my latest Substack, I Must Be Dreaming, here

I reviewed The Catchers, Xan Brooks's immersive tale of music-biz exploitation set in the 1920s Mississippi Delta, in the Literary Review

'Julia was my first love. It happened in the autumn of 1984'. I wasn't planning on posting any fiction on Substack, but here's the opening of a novella set forty years ago this month. Read The Angel's Reply (for free) here

I wrote about Entitlement, Rumaan Alam's (far superior) follow-up to his 2020 hit Leave the World Behind, in the Spectator

Here's my Substack essay for August. Doubling Up: The Treatment of Twins in Literature, Film & TV (first published in the TLS Jan 2022). Read it for free here

Join me and my brother, James Cook, at the Stroud Literary Festival on Saturday 9th November at 8pm, for readings and live music from his memoir, In Her Room. Tickets here