Book advertisement of the month

From the February 2016 issue of the Literary Review, a full-page ad, page 7, facing the Contributors* list on page 6, which is a hi-visibility spot:

I think if it was my ₤2940 I would have included a direct link to the Amazon page where one could buy the Kindle book, but what do I know?

That missing link is here: it tells us nothing about the author but does reveal what the book is about:

Is Chris the founder of a new religion, the reviver of an old religion or is he stark, staring bonkers. Find out as the sun worshipper stumbles his way through a maze of religious, classical and literary allusions that are finely woven into the tapestry of the book.

 Well, good luck with that. It worked for Dan Brown.

Elsewhere in this issue John Adamson of Cambridge University reviews The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History by Peter H Wilson; historian Andrew Roberts reviews Churchill and Ireland by Paul Bew; medical and social history author Wendy Moore reviews When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi; and Keith Miller of the Daily Telegraph reviews The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes. That’s just what’s online. They aren’t mad – they don’t give it all away.

Possibly my favourite in this issue is the review by Michael Burleigh, “CEO of the City political risk consultants Sea Change Partners” of The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age by David S Abraham. Quote unquote:

Environmentalists often deplore the physical and human damage caused by promiscuous mining. Yet their desire for more green vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines is precisely what is driving increased mining of rare metals, which are used in permanent magnets that drive the motors and lithium batteries that store the energy.

*The Contributors list is not usually a hi-visibility page for a magazine, but with the Literary Review I always look at who the writers are because they are so good: many are academics of whom one has never heard, and/but write beautifully. As do the novelists, historians, biographers and the rest. Possibly the best-written magazine in the world.