In defiance of Il Duce
The details of Mussolini’s fascism are perhaps not quite as familiar in this country as they might be. Even quite…
Love under wraps
It’s an important subject: the existence of a permanent and significant minority within London’s life. Gay men and lesbians have…
Truth is stranger than satire
I think we’re all agreed about Donald Trump — by which I mean all of us who read the literary…
All in the mind’s eye
Everyone knows what the Rorschach tests are. Like Freudian slips, boycotts, quislings and platonic friendships, however, it was long ago…
All in the mind’s eye
Everyone knows what the Rorschach tests are. Like Freudian slips, boycotts, quislings and platonic friendships, however, it was long ago…
Sins of the flesh
Bill Schutt has an excellent subject, and he explores it from a promising angle. Cannibalism has long interested zoologists, anthropologists,…
Sins of the flesh
Bill Schutt has an excellent subject, and he explores it from a promising angle. Cannibalism has long interested zoologists, anthropologists,…
An unmagnificent seven
One of the most interesting developments in modern publishing has surely been the revival of interest in women writers of…
No one turned a hair
The Benson family was one of the most extraordinary of Victorian England, and they certainly made sure that we have…
A big beast in Hush Puppies
It always used to be said that, if it had been up to Guardian readers, Ken Clarke would certainly have…
Thoroughly bewitching
Angela Carter was a seminal, a watershed novelist: perhaps one of the last generation of novelists to change both the…
A life of telling stories
Not all novelists lead a public life. Those who do, however, tend to make a bit of a performance out…
A meeting of two minds
This lovely, modest and precise book tells the story of the most productive friendship among the modernists, and the most…
Visions of suburbia
Art is aspiring; hungry; acutely aware of what it could become, and of what it could lack; longs for safety…
Visions of suburbia
Art is aspiring; hungry; acutely aware of what it could become, and of what it could lack; longs for safety…
Food for thought
Elisabeth Luard has a fascinating and rich subject in the relationship between food and place. Humans eat differently according to…
