John Sandoe Books

Dame Eileen is joined by the novelist Salley Vickers to talk about Will She Do?: Act One of a Life on Stage. It is a marvellous memoir, beginning with her youth in Tottenham and ending when her theatrical career takes off. Forthright, transparent, dry, funny... there is nothing remotely precious about Dame Eileen’s account of herself. It is a delight! 

Please email, telephone (+44 (0)20 7589 9473) or order online if you would like a copy. 

Edited by Magnus Rena 

Music: Dusty Springfield, Don't Let Me Lose This Dream

Johnny once wrote of Robert Edric that 'his was the most significant body of work from a novelist in a generation.' He has written over twenty novels; My Own Worst Enemy is his first memoir. He spoke to Johnny about growing up in Sheffield in the 60s, as well as books, food, friendships, and what it's like to write about your own family.

Please email, telephone (+44 (0)20 7589 9473) or order online if you would like a copy. 

Edited by Magnus Rena

Music: Leo Kottke, Machine No. 2 

Salley Vickers wrote her latest novel in a Wiltshire cottage during lockdown. She talks to Johnny about the importance of gardening while writing, Shropshire's historic pagan landscapes, and the complications of family relationships. 

Click here to order a copy of The Gardener; choose to collect from Sandoe's or have us post it to you. 

Two sisters buy a rambling house in the Welsh Marches. One decides to bring the neglected garden back to life with the help of an Albanian migrant living in the nearby village. The work allows her space to contemplate her complex relationship with her sister and their difficult upbringing. Characteristically evocative and perceptive. 

Edited by Magnus Rena 

Music: Nick Drake, Man In A Shed

In anticipation of Christmas and the excitement of the coming weeks, we are thrilled to present a reading of one of Eva Ibbotson’s short stories. Some of our most obliging customers will already know her as an author of unparalleled charm and humour. Who else could combine an immense fish, a blunderbuss, love, moustaches and a vast, rose-sprigged chamberpot? A feast of Central European sensibility that will make you long to sip coffee and drift away all afternoon on a Biedermeier sofa... We have the right to post this magnificent piece of transporting bliss until the end of January, and we hope you enjoy it quite as much as we do.

Introduction by Arabella von Friesen, read by John de Falbe, and edited by Magnus Rena

Music: Johann Strauss II, Tales from the Vienna Woods piano version

2021 marks 200 years since the Greek Revolution and Mark Mazower's new book - The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe - is as timely as it is thrilling, expertly researched and vividly told. He spoke to Johnny de Falbe about this first 'romantic' European revolution. 

Edited by Magnus Rena 

Music: Marika Ninou, Soúroupo Me Sinnephiá

Some may have supposed that Thubron had done his last Big Journey (he is now 82), but this is arguably his biggest yet, and most arduous. Indomitable, venerable, he follows this immense river from its source in remote Mongolian bogs to where it emerges in the Sea of Okhotsk in the Russian Far East. It is a complicated journey, much of it surrounded by poverty, desolation, wrecked environments, social collapse and historical contortions in spite of the natural wonders of the landscapes through which he passes. CT is always fascinating and compelling, and this introduction to a world scarcely known to the West is an astonishing feat. 

We have a limited number of signed copies. Click here to order the book online, or get in touch by telephone or email to reserve a copy. 

Edited by Magnus Rena 

Music, in order:

Orkiestra Moskva, Na sopkach Mandzurii

Maxim Troshin, The Hills of Manchuria

Nikolai Nazarov, Separate Exemplary Ochestra of USSR Defense Ministry, On the Hills of Manchuria

Alexander Zlatovski, On the Hills of Manchuria

Craxton, that wonderful painter and funny, lovely man, could be in no better hands than Ian Collins’s… This biography is all that might be hoped for – thorough, loving, full of Craxton’s vitality and wit, with never a dull paragraph. 

Music: Manos Hadjidakis, To Waltz Ton Hamenon Oneiron 

Edited by Magnus Rena

James Marriott and his co-author Terry Macalister have spent decades researching and writing about the oil industry. Their new book plunges us into the murky world of Britain's crude oil corporations. They frame the industry as a new kind of imperialism, with hidden pipelines as its polluting engine and anonymous firms as its operators. It has the pace and intrigue of a well-plotted thriller.

Edited by Magnus Rena.

Music: PJ Harvey, Last Living Rose

The former head of the National Gallery, NPG and Royal Academy talks openly about the art museum's place in society today.

Edited by Magnus Rena

Music: David Bowie, Andy Warhol

OL talks to Magnus Rena about her new book, Everybody: A Book about Freedom. It's a sweeping, collective biography of a dozen glamorous but stifled figures: Susan Sontag, Christopher Isherwood, Nina Simone, Wilhelm Reich, Malcom X, Marquis de Sade, Ana Mendieta, etc. What they all share is an urge to break through various inherited constraints and seek out that strange and slippery thing called freedom. 

Edited by Magnus Rena 

Cover image: Ana Mendieta, Imágen de Yágul, 1973