Security overkill is terror’s real triumph
The moment the news broke on Halloween that an Uzbek in a rental truck had just killed eight people on…
When did fiction become so dangerous?
The assignment of books for review has always been haphazard. Fellow fiction writers can be tempted either to undermine the…
The young oppress their future selves
Matt Ridley’s fine recent Times column was hardly the first to raise the alarm about the pseudo-Soviet intolerance of the…
Say nothing
To my embarrassment, ever since my novel We Need to Talk About Kevin was published in 2003, I’ve been a…
At this rate, we’ll have to rename New York
Growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, I took the monuments around the state capitol for granted. The first Confederate soldier…
Diary
On the heels of the Today programme’s invitation to discuss ‘cultural appropriation’ (again), the New York Times reported the disheartening…
Diary
Novelists can’t merely tell cracking tales. We’re supposed to save the world. At the University of Kent, a student implored…
Diary
Novelists can’t merely tell cracking tales. We’re supposed to save the world. At the University of Kent, a student implored…
Diary
When an old friend X came to dinner in London, I sampled what it must have been like during the…
Diary
When an old friend X came to dinner in London, I sampled what it must have been like during the…
