Stay within the lines to realise your full creative energy
Narrow boundaries can lead to focus and innovation, argues David Epstein, whereas total freedom can be paralysing and result, paradoxically, in conformity
K2’s fatal attraction
Take one drug-addled occultist, one forlorn aristocrat, an assortment of urgent colonials and you have, no, not the western canon…
The ebb and flow of inner thought
We live in a world in which nuance is trampled on and cannot survive. Is that true? I don’t know.…
Beyond Endurance
Polar explorers are often cast as mavericks, and this is hardly surprising. The profession requires a disdain for pseudo-orthodoxies and,…
In the steppes of a warlord
Joanna Kavenna is impressed by one man’s 6,000-mile ride through some of the loneliest regions on earth
Darkness at dawn
On 12 April 1945 the Berlin Philharmonic gave its last performance. The atmosphere in Germany was apocalyptic, the Allied invasion…
Was Machiavelli a Machiavellian?
One more anniversary, one more cache of commemorative books. This time we are celebrating the half-millennium since Niccolò Machiavelli produced…
Land of hope and envy
Mark Mills is known for his historical and literary crime novels, including The Savage Garden, The Information Officer and House…
