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“... us. By an accident of the publishing season, Tennant’s morsel of national whimsy coincides with James Michener’s brick-sized The Covenant. At 873 pages (costing a mere £7.95 – compare Alice fell’s 124 for £5.50), this can claim to be the only Great American South African novel. Michener’s work belongs to ...”

“... British readers like myself – the majority, I suspect – for whom Peru is an unknown country. James Michener could brief us in a heavy-handed tutorial prelude on South American politics. But Shakespeare has chosen an artful form of narrative that cannot carry any great burden of exposition. I wish that Collins had appended ‘In Pursuit of ...”

“... 1788. It is the kind of subject that would inspire a less devious civilisation-chronicler like James Michener to epic slabs of narrative and at least two thousand pages, sweeping us from the formation of the continental land mass to Paul Hogan’s amber nectar ads. But Keneally habitually sidles into his big subjects, illuminating them indirectly by ...”

“... afford a therapist, a $4.95 paperback helps fill the gap. Think of Kathy Bates in Misery, breaking James Caan’s ankles, tying him to a desk, forcing him to resurrect in one novel the character he had killed in another; think of the suicide attempts of teenage girls when Robbie left Take That. Bates is crazy but recognisable, the fan turned fanatic, whose ...”