Brian Sewell does some donkey work: how Britain’s best-known art critic put his ass on the line
I suppose all children’s authors write the stories they would have liked to read as children. But in the case of…
In praise of messy old kitchens
Against sterile modern kitchens
It takes a village (or six): the battle for rural churches
Can England’s 10,000 rural churches survive?
How to stop being scared of full stops
Modern manners and the fear of the full stop
Bish bash Bosphorus: Elif Shafak’s saga of love and death in Istanbul is crammed with incident on every page
If you like to curl up by the fire with a proper, old-fashioned, saga-style tale about a boy and his…
A beautiful speaking voice is a window to the soul
A beautiful speaking voice draws attention to the words spoken
In search of dead men's bones
Skulls, femurs, ribs, pelvises, piled on top of each other in a chaotic heap: this, Denise Inge discovered, was what…
It’s not easy for a middle-aged woman to get inside the head of a 12-year-old innkeeper’s son in 1914
Esther Freud wrote dazzlingly in the first person through the eyes of a five-year-old child in her first novel, Hideous…
The vote on women bishops is a triumph for our diplomatic Archbishop
The vote on women bishops is a triumph for our diplomatic Archbishops
The Snow Queen crawls at snail’s pace – and you wouldn’t want it any other way
For all would-be novelists whose stumbling block is that they can’t resist describing every single sensation in depth — the…
When No Man's Land is home
Countless writers and film-makers this year will be trying their hand at forcing us to wake up and smell the…
As Green as Grass, by Emma Smith - review
The title, the subtitle, the author’s plain name, even the jacket’s photograph of a laughing old lady in sunglasses: none…
A Corner of Paradise, by Brian Thompson - review
Author has late-blossoming romance with authoress, both divorcees, and they live together in a cramped house in Harrogate full of…
