IN HER ENGAGING memoir of 20th-century literary life, The Kindness of Strangers, Salka Viertel, a leading Austrian actress, recounts her first American encounter. In 1928, she and her husband, writer-director Berthold Viertel, had been invited to dinner in Berlin by a visiting columnist, Dorothy Thompson, who happened to be the fiancée of Sinclair Lewis.
Turning the clock on history
In this review PUTIN’S WARS From Chechnya to Ukraine 384pp. Osprey Publishing. £25. Mark Galeotti OVERREACH The inside story of Putin’s war against Ukraine 432pp. Mudlark. £25. Owen Matthews INVASION Russia’s bloody war and Ukraine’s...