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The Dearest And The Best
The Dearest And The Best
Dec 29, 2025 11:58 PM

Author:Leslie Thomas

The Dearest And The Best

In the spring of 1940, the spectre of war turned into grim reality.

And on the English home front, men, women and children found themselves swept into a maelstrom of fear and uncertainty while events abroad led inexorably from the debacles of Norway and Dunkirk to the horror and glory of the Battle of Britain.

For the Lovatt family - James, seconded on a hush-hush assignment to work with Churchill, and his brother Harry, a naval officer - for Bess Spofford, Joanne Schorner, Graham Smit and all the inhabitants of the history villages of the New Forest, it was the beginning of the most bizarre, funny and tragic episode of their lives.

Reviews

Excellent

—— Sunday Times

Top Class

—— Mirror

Doyle's tenth novel might be called The Dead Republic, but its vision of what Smart calls "the green thing" is as alive as any he has given us

—— Independent on Sunday

There is lovely, brutal detail, as well as a grand swoop over the timeline of Ireland and America, just like the kind of film they just don't make anymore

—— Financial Times

This is Ireland's most famous living writer tackling one of the most crucial periods in history

—— Guardian

Reading it is like spending time with a favourite uncle whose anecdotes you'd happily listen to over and over again because...it makes you laugh

—— Alice Fisher , The Observer

Having made it to number two in Esquire's funniest books list, Jerome K Jerome's comic tale of boat-bound idlers is reissued this month, with 30 charming illustrations by a certain Vic Reeves

—— Esquire

A lovely jacketed hardback... Reeves captures absolutely Jerome's droll, gentle and thoroughly English sense of the absurd... perfect alfresco spring reading.

—— Claire Allfrey , Metro

Go on a journey without leaving your chair.

—— Harper’s Bazaar

One of the 'classics' of English humorous literature

—— Contemporary Review

A wide-ranging, energetic satire on what used to be called Fleet Street

—— Times Literary Supplement

When high meets lowbrow, comedy ensues, but McAfee's novel is not without serious intent. She deftly peels away her characters' pretensions, forcing readers to examine their own prejudices.

—— Scotsman

Sparky tragicomedy

—— Daily Mail

McAfee is a superlative writer and plotter...McAfee has produced a locus classicus of Fleet Street

—— Rachel Johnson , The Lady

Darkly funny but also a very timely read

—— Stylist

[A] satirical debut about the newspaper business

—— Stand Point

A cutting, hilarious portrait of British print journalism... An entirely human story that brilliantly recreates and analyses the recent past

—— The Times

Those gripped by the escalating News International scandal might enjoy the latest newspaper novel Annalena McAfee's The Spoiler

—— Glasgow Herald

authentic, entertaining and draws on her own experience as an arts journalist

—— Daily Express

The Spoiler - set in the halcyon days before phone hacking - was one of the funniest and sharpest fleet street novels in years.

—— David Robson , Sunday Telegraph Seven

McAfee - herself a former journalist - evokes two distinct eras and styles of journalism, that of fearless frontline reportage and that of its successor: style-oriented, celebrity-obsessed features coverage... This is a pacy read that leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that one school of journalism deserves more mourning than the other

—— Alex Clark , Guardian

Marvellous satire...the novel is cunningly plotted and satisfyingly nuanced

—— Independent on Sunday

If the peek into the world of newspaper journalism afforded by the Leveson inquiry has you gasping for more, then this timely paperback release is perfect...a fiendishly funny (and frighteningly plausible) world of fiddled expenses and suspect tactics

—— Shortlist

Thoroughly enjoyable behind-the-scenes expose of an ambitious celebrity journalist's attempt to nail the scoop of her life

—— Metro

This is the paperback edition. The hardback appeared before the News Corporation bosses were dragged into the Commons. McAfee was either very prescient or close to the action, holding her fictional hacks to account for printing false stories gleaned from disreputable sources

—— Julia Fernandez , Time Out
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