Maurice Aldridge is a London-based antiquarian book dealer. Along with most independent bookshops in the age of the worldwide web, his business is struggling. He is surprised but cautiously optimistic therefore when invited to lunch at the Ritz by a rich American collector who entices...

In Robin Hawdon’s World War II novel Dinner with Churchill, young Lucy dreams of a life beyond her family’s bakery in a sleepy English lake town. When her brother joins the army, Lucy moves to London where she enrolls in a secretarial school. After months...