Frank Field: 1942-2024
Frank Field, the former Labour minister and crossbench peer, died today aged 81. Below is an interview he did with…
What we owe to the self-taught genius Carl Linnaeus
Bumptious, uncouth and the despair of his schoolmasters, Linnaeus died almost forgotten. Yet he established a system of taxonomy that we still use two centuries later
Will Keir Starmer ever learn to loosen up?
The Labour leader comes across as compassionate and hard-working, but so ill at ease in front of the cameras that even his close friends fail to recognise him
Nothing satisfies Madonna for very long
Her ‘rebel’ life, as told by Mary Gabriel, has been a frenzied churn of friends, lovers, mentors and collaborators, vital to her for a year or two and then discarded
Joan Didion deserves better
The great American writer is ill-served by this new biography – but luckily we still have her own writing to tell us who she truly was
‘My attachment to Giacometti grew into the bedrock of my existence’
Michael Peppiatt has had a lifelong obsession with Alberto Giacometti – and it shows in this perfect biography, says Lynn Barber
‘I have uncancelled myself’: David Starkey interviewed
David Starkey’s commentary on the Queen’s funeral on GB News was generally agreed to be the best of all the…
How Britain prepared for Armageddon from the 1950s onwards
The official policy in the event of nuclear war veered from fatuous evacuation plans to a directive to stockpile food, stay home and hope for the best
The life of Elizabeth Taylor was non-stop drama
Kate Andersen Brower has had access to the vast, unpublished archive of Hollywood’s queen - famed for her beauty, diamonds and unhappy marriages
Meghan and Harry have never grasped the notion of ‘only connect’
In June 2017 Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, was surprised when Jane Sarkin, his features editor, told him…
The troubled life of Paul Newman
Paul Newman explains at the beginning how this book came about: ‘I want to leave some kind of record that…
Jarvis Cocker measures out his life in attic junk
If you were hoping for an autobiography this isn’t it. Jarvis Cocker calls it ‘an inventory’ and insists: ‘This is…
Sheila Hancock takes pride in her irascibility
This book begins with Sheila Hancock wondering why she is being offered a damehood. I must say I slightly wondered…
Is Anna Wintour human?
Apparently Anna Wintour wants to be seen as human, and Amy Odell’s biography goes some way to helping her achieve…
All talk and no trousers: is Oxford really to blame for Brexit?
Attacks on British elitism usually talk about Oxbridge, but Simon Kuper argues that it is specifically Oxford that is the…
The party’s finally over for Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage was never even an MP, but Michael Crick argues convincingly that he is one of the top five…
How Shane MacGowan became Ireland’s prodigal son
I once stood on a Dublin street with Shane MacGowan and watched little old ladies who can’t ever have been…
‘I’m plagued by worries of disaster’: an interview with Dominic Cummings
Dominic Cummings on asteroids, AI and leaving No. 10
Abandoned by Paul Theroux: the diary of a sad ex-wife who sadly can’t write
When I interviewed Paul Theroux 21 years ago at his home in Hawaii, there were already rumours that his ex-wife…
The sexploits of Mariella Novotny
Orgies! Gangsters! Drugs! Spies! Scandals! This biography promises much but I’m not sure it actually delivers, or not in any…
A new blossoming: David Hockney paints Normandy
In 2018 David Hockney went to Normandy to look at the Bayeux Tapestry, which he had not seen for more…
Why is buying a car such an ordeal?
Why is buying a car such an ordeal?
Tom Bower pulls his punches with his life of Boris Johnson
The Prime Minister may have lost his bounce –but perhaps that’s no bad thing, says Lynn Barber
When sexism was routine: the life of the female reporter in 1970s London
This book made me almost weep with nostalgia, but heaven knows what today’s snowflakes will make of it. Fleet Street…
The horrors of the ‘Upskirt Decade’
Lynn Barber 25 November 2023 9:00 am
The century began as a monstrous time to be famous and female – epitomised by the Tulsa judge who, in 2006, seemed to rule that no woman had a right to privacy in public