‘This sweet, delightful book’: The Natural History of Selborne revisited
Quiet days in his garden listening to birdsong and counting his cucumbers gave Gilbert White enough material for one of the most enduring classics of all time
Was Cat Stevens the inspiration for Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’?
The pop pin-up of the 1970s certainly suggests so – and, judging by his ‘official autobiography’, still finds himself endlessly fascinating
The trials of ‘the sexiest man alive’
Johnny Depp dismissed the idea a prenup before marrying Amber Heard – only to spend the next decade embroiled in litigation
Magnetic and manipulative – the enigma of Gala Dali
Countless people apparently found her fascinating, but apart from being shrewd, scary, intelligent and very beady about money, it’s hard to see why
Poor little rich girl: the extraordinary life of Yoko Ono
Her background was one of privilege and she married one of the most famous men of our time but the Japanese artist suffered her fair share of grief and misfortune
How can a biography of Woody Allen be so unbearably dull?
Only after 300-plus pages of tedious filmography do we finally get to the rift with Mia Farrow and the family scandals that have dogged Allen ever since
Red-letter days for Gilbert & George
After a successful show in Moscow in 1990, the odd couple went on to even greater triumph in China three years later, as the long-suffering curator of both exhibitions describes
‘You can really sing!’ – Sonny discovers the teenage Cher
The moment Sonny heard the voice of the girl he employed as a cleaner, both their fortunes changed – and two years later the couple would be greeted by 5,000 screaming fans in New York
Truly inspirational: the hospital diary of Hanif Kureishi
‘My world has been smashed...and there is nothing I can do about’, writes Kureishi of the freak accident in 2022 that has left him paralysed. ‘But I will not go under. I will make something of it’
The ordeal of sitting for my father Lucian Freud
Rose Boyt describes posing naked over many nights – supplied with purple hearts by Freud to keep her awake – and her shock on finally seeing the result
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
The sacred and profane
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
‘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’s commentary on the Queen’s funeral on GB News was generally agreed to be the best of all the…
Planning for Armageddon
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
Queen of Hollywood
Kate Andersen Brower has had access to the vast, unpublished archive of Hollywood’s queen - famed for her beauty, diamonds and unhappy marriages
What Meghan got
In June 2017 Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, was surprised when Jane Sarkin, his features editor, told him…
The ultimate cool guy
Paul Newman explains at the beginning how this book came about: ‘I want to leave some kind of record that…
The happy hoarder
If you were hoping for an autobiography this isn’t it. Jarvis Cocker calls it ‘an inventory’ and insists: ‘This is…
Super trouper
This book begins with Sheila Hancock wondering why she is being offered a damehood. I must say I slightly wondered…
No time-wasters, please
Apparently Anna Wintour wants to be seen as human, and Amy Odell’s biography goes some way to helping her achieve…
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