Charlie English 

Praise for The CIA Book Club (2025)

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“Vibrant, beautifully researched and exciting… As you might expect from English’s previous The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, The CIA Book Club is a real pleasure to read – a finely written page-turner full of well-researched stories of smuggling, intrigue and survival. It would make an exceptionally good series for television, and it provides a powerful reminder of the extraordinary events of Poland’s struggle for freedom.” — John Simpson, The Guardian. Read full review

 

“[English] has a knack for suspense. At times this book reads like a spy novel. It is full of colourful characters… Although [Jerzy] Giedroyc is a household name in Polish intellectual circles, the mention to them today that he had a code name — QRBERETTA — results in gasps of surprise.”—  Magdalena Miecznicka, Financial Times. Full review

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“Gripping… A vivid and moving story… [English] is terrific at evoking the atmosphere of Poland in the 1970s and 1980s… it’s good to be reminded of a time when the written word really mattered.” — Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times. Full review

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“Entertaining and vivid… a gripping account of an intriguing and little-known cold war moment. In contrast to our own fascist-tinged times, liberal ideas won.” — Luke Harding, The Observer. Read full review
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Reads like a thriller’ — Ingo Hippisley, The Sun. 

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“Gripping… an extraordinarily detailed account of how the [CIA] Book Club set about capturing hearts and minds” — Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday

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“Tremendous flair and grasp of detail… English tells the gripping, cat-and-mouse tale of those Polish dissidents who went to extraordinary lengths to maintain the secret flow of western literature into their benighted country… 

“That the author manages to recount this decades-long, hair-raising breach of the Iron Curtain in such impressive detail … is testament to his skill in tracking down those Cold War warriors who survived to tell the tale.” — Ariane Bankes, The Tablet. Full review

 

“Compelling… there is a lot of derring-do in these pages, and the courage and ingenuity of the people involved are almost shaming when we consider the costs of dissidence.” — Nicholas Lezard, The Oldie
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“Impressively detailed.… English does a first-rate job in piecing together this patchily known story in efficient, pacy prose… English’s fine oral history of samizdat Poland in the 1980s provides a timely lesson for each and every one of us…” — Nicholas Shakespeare, The Spectator

 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Startling… Unable to fight, the USA turned to smuggling 10 million books across the Iron Curtain, as Charlie English’s The CIA Book Club deftly relates”. – Julian Evans, Sunday Telegraph

“An inspiring story of courage and ingenuity” — Allan Mallinson, Country Life

 

“The hero of this absorbing book [is] Miroslaw Chojecki.… English gives a vivid account of the cat-and-mouse game that Chojecki’s agents played with the Polish customs and security services.” — Piers Brendon, Literary Review

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Praise for The Gallery of Miracles and Madness (2021)

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“Superbly told… there’s so much that’s wonderful about this book, it’s hard to know where to start heaping praise. It is by turns intriguing, tragic, horrifying and occasionally funny. I was sad when I finished it, a feeling I usually only get from novels… Hitler is Hitler, there’s not much new that can be said, yet English somehow does.”—Gerard de Groot, The Times

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“A masterclass in biography… English spins gold out of hundreds of fractured sources, With his capable hand, history comes alive”—Ella Fox-Martens, New York Observer

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“A terrific book,  taut and thematic where it could so easily have been slack and baggy… Hitler is so huge a figure that a less assured writer would have had trouble cutting him down to size and keeping him in play, but English manages this deftly. The result is a book as beautiful as it is bleak.” —Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian

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“Profoundly heartbreaking, unexpectedly redeeming and immensely important” —Deborah Mason, Bookpage

 

“Powerful and disturbing” —Kirkus Reviews

 

“Engrossing”—The Economist

 

“A fascinating account” —Publishers Weekly

 

“Mr English deftly links art history, psychiatry and Hitler’s ideology to devastating effect… I often needed to pause for air”—Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal

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Praise for The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu (2017)

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“A piece of postmodern historiography of quite extraordinary sophistication and ingenuity” —Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement

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“Exemplary… a work of intellectual honesty that represents narrative non-fiction at its most satisfying and engaging”—William Dalrymple, The Guardian

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“Incredible story… fits perfectly the ongoing narrative of Timbuktu”—Tom Zoellner, New York Times Book Review

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“Part reportage, part history, part romance and wholly gripping… a riveting read”—Helen Davies, Sunday Times

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“Excellent… English tells the gripping story of accreting layers of exploration and literary excavation with punch and

panache”—Justin Marozzi, Spectator

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“Lively… thrilling… brilliant”—The Economist

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“Spellbinding”—The New Yorker

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“Insightful… shows that the sort of willful delusion behind much of the 18th- and 19th-century quest for Timbuktu continues to this day”—Anthony Sattin, the Wall Street Journal

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“A fascinating account of Timbuktu's history and the brave and crazy adventurers who sought death and glory trying to get there”—Jerome Starkey, the Times

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“Sophisticated teasing out of the facts from the myths”—Robert Eustace, Sunday Telegraph

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“Evocative, sensitive and intelligent”—Jason Burke, Literary Review

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“A model of fine storytelling”—Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

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“A riveting dual narrative”—Dean King, author of Skeletons on the Zahara

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“A stirring, page-turning story of thrilling discovery and heroic resistance, peopled by an unforgettable cast”—Amy Wilentz, author of Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti

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“Enthralling… Like the beguiling place it describes, The Storied City is fascinating and surprising at every turn”—Scott Anderson, author of Lawrence in Arabia

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“Engrossing… a compelling work of history and historiography”—Kirkus Reviews

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“Meticulously researched, powerfully written, and riveting” — Ben MacIntyre

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 “A taut, mesmerizing journey to the legendary desert city”—Peter Stark

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“A gripping tale of contemporary risk-taking”—John Ure, Country Life

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“A breathtaking piece of reporting, writing and scholarship”—Ian Katz, Channel 4

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 “Investigative journalism, travel and history writing at its best”—The Guardian

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Chosen as a Financial Times “Book of the Year”, and a Sunday Times “Must read”.

 

Praise for The Snow Tourist (2008)

 

“A cracking read that deserves to be by the bedside of every keen skier or snowboarder” – The Economist

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“A thing of wonder and delight. A perfect winter book” – Metro

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“The story of Mr. English's feeling for snow makes a book as delicious as a double chocolate liegeois” – The Times

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 “A far more intriguing account than much current travel literature. . .The places he visits are sometimes perilously cold, but English's account is touchingly warm” – The Guardian

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“Incredibly, what seems like the most vanishingly tiny subject actually turns out to encompass vast tracts of our experience. In parts, the book is deeply practical… in parts poetic.” – The Observer