Andy Miller

The horror of finding oneself ‘young-old’

11 November 2023 9:00 am

‘I used to run upstairs all the time,’ sixtysomething Marcus Berkmann recalls wistfully, as, midway through life’s journey, he wakes to find himself in a dark wood

The Prefab Four

17 June 2023 9:00 am

Monkeying around on TV vastly increased the group’s sales and popularity but prevented them from ever being taken seriously, says Tom Kemper

A shaggy drug story: Industry of Magic & Light, by David Keenan, reviewed

20 August 2022 9:00 am

The Scottish writer David Keenan has published five novels in five years: This is Memorial Device (2017), For the Good…

Old rockers with a Peter Pan syndrome

28 May 2022 9:00 am

What do the following individuals have in common: a political activist from Suffolk; a chartered psychologist from Oxfordshire, who enjoys…

David Keenan, literary disruptor in chief

14 August 2021 9:00 am

Near to the heart of this wild and labyrinthine novel — on page 516 of 808 — a character in…

A true bohemian: the story of Nico’s rise and fall

7 August 2021 9:00 am

It is well established that artists are not always the nicest people. On the surface, the life of the model,…

From cheap sex comedies to gritty brilliance: British culture comes of age

6 February 2021 9:00 am

As readers of a certain age will realise, Looking for a New England derives its title from ‘A New England’,…

From cheeky mop tops to long-haired holy men: The Beatles come of age in America

17 October 2020 9:00 am

In his latest book, the veteran pop commentator David Hepworth is concerned with satisfaction, its acquisition and maintenance. On record,…

If you spent a day at Action Park you took your life in your hands

25 July 2020 9:00 am

Before reading this book, the only thing I knew about Action Park was that it had lent its name to…

Even in the Swinging Sixties, Ray Davies was feeling nostalgic

28 March 2020 9:00 am

At first glance, nostalgia does not seem like a subject much suited to exploration via the medium of the pop…

Nick Lowe is that rare phenomenon — the veteran rock star who improves with age

26 October 2019 9:00 am

It is to Nick Lowe’s everlasting credit that in May 1977, a few months after David Bowie released the album…

A snapshot of George holding his infant daughter on Chapel Sands provides a key to the family mystery.

Solving the mystery of my mother’s kidnap

29 June 2019 9:00 am

At first glance, Laura Cumming’s memoir On Chapel Sands begins with what appears to be a happy ending. On an…

Shakespeare on the beach: Oh I Do Like to Be…, by Marie Phillips, reviewed

9 February 2019 9:00 am

The phrase ‘Shakespeare comedy’ is an oxymoron with a long pedigree, one which perhaps stretches back to the late 16th…

'The Charge of the 10th Hussars at Benevente (Corunna Campaign), 1809', c1915 (1928)

On the run from Corunna: Now We Shall be Entirely Free, by Andrew Miller, reviewed

1 September 2018 9:00 am

There is only one Andrew Miller. In the 20 years since his debut novel Ingenious Pain won both the James…

Less, by Andrew Sean Greer, reviewed

30 June 2018 9:00 am

For someone who is only 47 and has won a Pulitzer Prize, Andrew Sean Greer certainly knows how to get…

How can we know what dead people want?

7 April 2018 9:00 am

In 1999, Patrick Hemingway published True at First Light, a new novel by his father Ernest. In his role as…

The short, reckless life of Andrea Dunbar

9 December 2017 9:00 am

In her debut novel, Adelle Stripe recounts the brief, defiant life of the playwright Andrea Dunbar. Dunbar was raised on…

Having your cake

30 September 2017 9:00 am

For those in the know, Jimmy Webb is one of the great pop songwriters of the 1960s and 70s, up…

David Quantick’s The Mule: lost in the world of translation

12 March 2016 9:00 am

For those who read the weekly music press during the 1980s, David Quantick’s was a name you could rely on.…

Christopher Hitchens (Photo: Getty)

Cultured — and combative — criticism from America

30 January 2016 9:00 am

Four years after his death, it is still faintly surprising to recall that Christopher Hitchens is no longer resident on…

Patrick deWitt is a literary original but he needs to BE MORE FUNNY

3 October 2015 9:00 am

Patrick deWitt is a Canadian writer whose second novel, a picaresque and darkly comic western called The Sisters Brothers, was…

A remote island community is disrupted by the arrival of a troubled teenager

15 August 2015 9:00 am

Benjamin Wood’s first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was published in 2012, picked up good reviews, was shortlisted for the Costa…

Jonathan Ames (Photo: Getty)

The best Jeeves and Wooster novel Saul Bellow never wrote

11 July 2015 9:00 am

Wake Up, Sir! is the latest novel by the American humourist Jonathan Ames; the book first appeared in the States…

The mysterious pleasure of Magnus Mills

18 April 2015 9:00 am

Since his debut with the Booker-nominated The Restraint of Beasts in 1999, Magnus Mills has delighted and occasionally confounded his…

The Kinks in their Sixties heyday— Ray Davies is far right, next to his brother Dave

Ray Davies: part of Swinging Sixties London — and apart from it too

21 March 2015 9:00 am

As Johnny Rogan notes in this new biography of Ray Davies and the Kinks, it is almost 50 years since…