What not to say when visiting Santa’s grotto, and other tips from Ben Schott
Also discussed in the latest miscellany are classic Italian gesticulations, the nuances of graffiti, the hierarchy of Venetian gondoliers and how to deter paparazzi
The rollercoaster ride of the world’s most reckless investor
The Korean-born Masayoshi Son – who lost $58.6 billion in 2000 – has a fascination with Napoleon, compares himself to Genghis Khan and is now reinventing himself as a futurist
Word association
From an employee of a tram company in Birkenhead to the deeply eccentric Alexander Ellis, a celebration of the army of unpaid contributors to the first edition of the OED
Sticky subjects
Queasy nostalgia gives way to mounting anger in a satirical novel about post-war Britain, seen through the eyes of a Birmingham family
Roundheads on the run
When Charles II became king of England in 1660, he pardoned most of those who’d committed crimes during the civil…
Time is running out
This is not a book about tennis. Roger Federer appears early on, trailed by the obligatory question ‘When will he…
Who’s story is it?
‘Whenever you see a character in a novel, let alone a biography or history book, reduced and neatened into three…
Cock and bull stories
The word ‘hoax’ did not catch on till the early 19th century. Before that one spoke of a hum, a…
A tide of distrust
Over the past 50 years, M. John Harrison has produced a remarkably varied body of work: a dozen atmospheric novels…
All things considered
What does Jony Ive, the designer of Apple’s iPhone, have in common with Peter Perez Burdett, the first Englishman to…
London has a genius for self-renewal — but what do we miss as a result?
In the autumn of 1987, after London had been hit by a fierce storm, Simon Jenkins wandered through Bloomsbury and…
Can giving voice to the horrors of the past re-traumatise?
It is 50 years since Ronald Blythe published Akenfield, his melancholy portrait of a Suffolk village on the cusp of…
Who’s who and what’s what
Asked to name a reference book, you may well choose the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary. But…
Down and out in Park Lane and Plaistow
‘I was born in London,’ Ben Judah tells us early in this vivid portrait of Britain’s capital, ‘but I no…
All the men and women merely players
How many books are there about Shakespeare? A study published in the 1970s claimed a figure of 11,000, and today…
