Love it and list it

A few days before Hilary Mantel’s third volume on the life of Thomas Cromwell was published (see Lucy Hughes-hallett’s review on page 51 of the April issue), there was a letter in the Times stating that the correspondent was going to self isolate to coincide with the book’s publication. The letter writer asked if the Times reviewer could confirm whether 14 days would be sufficient time to read it in. It is certainly long — coming in at 912 pages and weighing more than two pounds.

Perhaps that is one reason why pre-sales of The Mirror and the Light in January were eclipsed by Mrs Hinch’s Little Book of Lists, to be published by Michael Joseph in April. Mrs Hinch is the nom de plume of Sophie Hinchcliffe, an ‘influencer’ with 3 million Instagram followers, whose book of lists is a mere 216 pages. It’s a ‘whole book filled with just lists! Notebook goals! My idea of absolute heaven!’ says Mrs Hinch on her publisher’s website.

Of course we all love lists. Take, for example, Alex Johnson’s A Book of Book Lists: A Bibliophile’s Compendium (British Library, 2017). It’s not a ‘1,001 books you must read before you’re 40’ kind of book, writes the author in his introduction. Instead it lists the books most frequently left in hotels, prisoners’ favourite books, MPS’ most borrowed books, ‘lost’ books (eg, Byron’s memoirs, Melville’s The Isle of the Cross) and so on. Oliver Tearle, author of The Secret Library: A Book-lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History (Michael O’mara, 2016), thought the compendium would inspire readers to get ‘writing a few lists of their own: wish lists for new books to go in search of’.

So whether you are a habitual list-maker or not, delve inside this supplement and compile your own wish list from the books reviewed: biography, history, entertainment, fiction… over to you.