Alun David

Growing up middle class in Nazi Germany

Alun David reviews an account of a wartime childhood

The Diaries by Franz Kafka review: Into Kafka’s workshop

New translation of the diary of a literary giant provides an insight into his unique artistry

The Maniac review: Huge ideas spread too thin

There are lively moments but this fictionalised account of 20th-century polymath John von Neumann will disappoint many readers

Of Maus and men: Valuable insights into a controversial classic

A significant aid towards the understanding of the graphic novel

Book review: The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature - No conspiracy, we’re just connected

Author has notion of meritocracy in his sights in unconventional perspective on a golden age for Jews in American literature

Old Truths and New Clichés book review: Essays by Isaac Bashevis Singer - The universal mamaloshen

The essays in this volume may not match Singer’s fiction at its best, but they provide an invaluable supplement to our understanding of this extraordinary writer’s vision

The Young Pretender: The Dramatic Return of Master Betty book review: A child star’s tragi-comic life

Author Michael Arditti executes a sustained pastiche of early 19th-century English in which Georgian Britain comes vividly to life

Damon Galgut The Promise review: Commitment 
and consequence

Review: Cathedral by Ben Hopkins

Reviewer Alun David is won over by architectural broiges

Review: My Father’s Letters

The book’s signal achievement is vividly and intimately to present the human cost of tyranny, writes Alun David

Book review: On Turpentine Lane and Good Riddance

Elinor Lipman is a clever writer, who offers accessible entertainment, but she also asks her own questions about what the purpose of literature might be

Review: About Time

This book is well-observed, humane, and very funny, writes Alun David