From cheap sex comedies to gritty brilliance: British culture comes of age
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
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
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
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
It is to Nick Lowe’s everlasting credit that in May 1977, a few months after David Bowie released the album…
Solving the mystery of my mother’s kidnap
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
The phrase ‘Shakespeare comedy’ is an oxymoron with a long pedigree, one which perhaps stretches back to the late 16th…
On the run from Corunna: Now We Shall be Entirely Free, by Andrew Miller, reviewed
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
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?
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
In her debut novel, Adelle Stripe recounts the brief, defiant life of the playwright Andrea Dunbar. Dunbar was raised on…
Having your cake
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
For those who read the weekly music press during the 1980s, David Quantick’s was a name you could rely on.…
Cultured — and combative — criticism from America
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
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
Benjamin Wood’s first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was published in 2012, picked up good reviews, was shortlisted for the Costa…
The best Jeeves and Wooster novel Saul Bellow never wrote
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
Since his debut with the Booker-nominated The Restraint of Beasts in 1999, Magnus Mills has delighted and occasionally confounded his…
Ray Davies: part of Swinging Sixties London — and apart from it too
As Johnny Rogan notes in this new biography of Ray Davies and the Kinks, it is almost 50 years since…
A brief, witty look at the coming of the e-book
Paul Fournel is a novelist, former publisher and French cultural attaché in London, and the provisionally definitive secretary and president…
The greatest sitcom that never was
Funny Girl is the story of the early career of the vivacious, hilarious Sophie Straw, star of the much-loved BBC…
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