How come our cash-strapped universities can afford so many administrators?
At Oxford and elsewhere, university administration is out of control
Virtual reality versus real reality: wisdom (and motorcycle maintenance) from Matthew Crawford
Bit of Kant, bit of Kierkegaard, bit of motorcycle maintenance. That’s one take on The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew…
Under Harry Potter’s spell: most children’s books have become shamelessly derivative, says Melanie McDonagh
Go to any bookshop — always supposing you’re fortunate enough to have any left in your neck of the woods…
Love child or bastard: the lottery of being born on the wrong side of the blanket
My father was handed over a shop counter when he was a day old. His aunt had tried to pass…
Grimms’ fairy tales: the hardcore version
Child murder, domestic slavery, abusive families, cannibalism and intergenerational hatred — what could be better for the festive fireside than…
The best children’s books of 2014
If it’s all right with you, I’d like to launch a campaign please. Right here. You may be wanting me…
The cult of 'mindfulness'
Separating meditation from faith might not be as harmless as it seems
What Shami regards as right isn’t necessarily what is right
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty and omnipresent media personality, is on the cover of her book.…
When Irish nationalism meant sexual adventure
One of the easiest mistakes to make about history is to assume that the past is like the recent past,…
Yotam Ottolenghi: the Saatchi brothers of vegetable PR
It would be a mistake to treat Plenty More, the new cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi, merely as a collection of…
Churchgoing is good for you (even if you don’t believe in God)
And that’s true whether or not you believe in God
Recipe for a modern baker: first, move to Hoxton
If I were the kind of person who invited people to come and have a bite to eat that very…
The best new children's books
A children’s author and illustrator, Jonathan Emmet, created a stir recently by saying that women are effectively gatekeepers of children’s…
Did most women want the vote?
The suffragettes’ opponents deserve to be remembered sympathetically
Paris
No city really multitasks like Paris, shorthand for romance, culture, fashion, gastronomy and the kind of street life you find…
Secrets of Candleford: the real Flora Thompson
Melanie McDonagh on Flora Thompson, whose revealing account of rural Oxfordshire life at the turn of the 19th century became a literary classic
Forgive me, Father
What Catholics really talk about in the confession box
François Hollande - all the president's women
Hollande’s affair demonstrates that the French are becoming more puritanical about monogamy
How we lost the seasons
... for tomorrow traditional seasonal rituals may just be ghostly memories of a vanished world, says Melanie McDonagh
The best children's books for Christmas
Animal stories for children are always tricky; as J.R.R. Tolkien observed in his essay on fairy stories, you can end…
The man who made it OK to talk about immigration
How Professor Paul Collier has bypassed the liberal taboo on discussing immigration
Helen Fielding has lost her touch
To understand quite how disgruntled the reviews of the latest Bridget Jones diaries have been, you have to recall quite…
Less sex please, we're British
From Bridget Jones to prime-time telly, porn culture is now mainstream
Do women want what they say they want?
What do women want? You might have thought the Wife of Bath had got this one sorted, but Daniel Bergner…
Why G.K. Chesterton shouldn’t be made a saint
G.K. Chesterton was a great journalist, not an angel
