Book of the week: Letters to Camondo
Edmund de Waal pens a unique companion volume to his 2010 bestseller The Hare with Amber Eyes

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Craig Taylor is an “endlessly curious Canadian” journalist who is best known for his works of oral history, said Laura Pullman in The Sunday Times. In Return to Akenfield (2009), he captured the life of a Suffolk village, and two years later, in the widely praised Londoners, he did the same for the UK capital. And he interviewed more than 180 people, over six years, for this “beautifully woven tapestry” of New York. Spanning the city’s social pecking order, his subjects range from bankers and lawyers to a homeless man who “recycles cans to scrape by”. Along with uplifting accounts by artists and activists there are stories that highlight the city’s darker side: a car thief spills the secrets of his profession; a therapist reveals that “every client fantasises about escaping”. You are forced to conclude that for many New Yorkers, life there is unbearably relentless. If I’d read this book “before moving here, I’d have been more hesitant to get on the plane”.
Some of its most fascinating sections are about the super-rich, said Craig Brown in The Mail on Sunday. A nanny describes working for families where the children have their own chefs. “If you are nine and cavalier about having your own private jet, nothing is ever going to be exciting for you,” she notes. We learn of other children who lock themselves in the bathroom “because it’s the only place where there are no housekeepers, parents, tutors, drivers”. And there’s a dentist whose bond trader client was so stressed by his job that he’d ground his teeth into pegs. Seventy years ago, in a letter from New York, Dylan Thomas wrote that behind its “facade of speed and efficiency”, it contained “millions of little individuals... wrestling, in vain, with their own anxieties”. Taylor’s “amazing book” suggests that some things have not changed.
John Murray 432pp £25; The Week Bookshop £19.99
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
Boys from the Blackstuff review
The Week Recommends A 'powerful' adaptation of Alan Bleasdale's 'masterpiece'
By The Week Staff Published
-
MG4 EV XPower review: what the car critics say
Feature The XPower just 'isn't as much fun' as a regular MG4
By The Week Staff Published
-
Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance review
The Week Recommends Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition features lives affected by the Atlantic slave trade
By The Week Staff Published
-
Private Lives review: a 'witty' revival of Noël Coward's classic comedy
The Week Recommends Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers play the warring exes in this 'delicious retro treat'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Wilderness review: a soapy drama set in the American southwest
The Week Recommends Amazon series starring Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen is 'full of twists'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Volkswagen ID.5 review: what the car critics say
Feature The ID.4's 'sportier, more stylish twin' – but 'don't believe the hype'
By The Week Staff Published
-
Jamaica Inn review: a small patch of Caribbean heaven
The Week Recommends Guests will feel like one of the family at this boutique beach resort in Ocho Rios
By Natasha Langan Published
-
Scottish Women Artists review
The Week Recommends Exhibition uncovers the work of female artists long hidden in 'historical obscurity'
By The Week Staff Published