Books
Bach’s Cello Suites represent a spiritual meditation — from the Nativity to the Resurrection
‘One player on four strings, with a bow.’ That’s what Bach’s six Cello Suites boil down to, says Steven Isserlis.…
Has George III been seriously maligned?
Americans regard George III as a power-crazed petty tyrant – but he was the very opposite, says Kate Maltby
A master of spy fiction to the end — John Le Carré’s Silverview reviewed
Literary estates work to preserve a writer’s reputation — and sometimes milk it too. The appearance of this novel by…
The horror of tank warfare brought vividly to life
If Joseph Stalin was right about one thing it was his assertion that ‘the death of one man is a…
God is everywhere, sometimes in strange guises, in Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads
Twenty years ago The Corrections alerted a troubled world to the talents of Jonathan Franzen. Though cruel and funny and…
Stylish and useful: why the Anglepoise remains a design classic
The tide of survival bias has retreated and left the Anglepoise a design classic. Its contemporaries from the mid-1930s, a…
Another haphazard Booker shortlist lacks literary competence
Philip Hensher finds this year’s Booker shortlist more concerned with serious world issues than vivid characterisation
Folk music is still very much alive and kicking
As a writer who obsesses over the right title to grab a target audience, seeing a book subtitled ‘Song Collectors…
Any beggar woman was a potential scapegoat during the European witch craze
In the three centuries between 1450 and 1750 in Europe it is estimated that up to 100,000 women were burned,…
Don’t ask a historian what history is
E.H. Carr’s 1961 book What is History? has cast a long shadow over the discipline. I recall being assigned to…
Under deep suspicion in Beirut, Kim Philby still carried on regardless
The story of the Cambridge spies has been served up so often that it has become stale — too detailed,…
Reassess every relationship you’ve ever had before it’s too late
‘Reading is a celebration of the mystery of ourselves,’ according to Elizabeth Strout, who writes to help readers understand themselves…
Colson Whitehead celebrates old Harlem in a hardboiled thriller that’s also a morality tale
For modern America, Harlem is a once maligned, now much vaunted literary totem, which continues to occupy a gargantuan place…
From ‘little Cockney’ to playing Queen Mary: the remarkable career of Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins belongs to a singular generation of British actresses, among them Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Sian Phillips and Vanessa…
Disappointed in the Libs?
How might the centre-right do better? This is the question that the promising young writer Jake Thrupp has posed; and…
Fiction’s most famous Rifleman returns — and it’s miraculous he’s still alive
It has been 15 years since the last Richard Sharpe novel, and it’s a pleasure to report that fiction’s most…
Beavers, not concrete barriers, can save Britain from floods
As the start date of COP26 draws closer, and just when we are assailed by daily proof of climate chaos,…
As feminists fall out, it’s not just the patriarchy that’s under fire
UK grassroots feminism is flourishing at the moment, with the journalist Julie Bindel leading from the front as troublemaker-in-chief. In…
The delicate business of monitoring the monarchy
This very readable account of relations between the British intelligence services and the Crown does more than it says on…
Spitfires of the sea: the secret exploits of the Royal Navy’s 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla
Fast boats and fast women have been the ruin of many a poor boy. But they can also prove a…
Pink for boys, blue for girls and a worldwide mania for mauve
Honor Clerk explores the history of the world through colour, from the Stone Age to orbiting the Moon
Only time will tell if there’ll be a Great Pandemic Novel
We had been dreading it like (forgive me) the plague: the inevitable onslaught of corona-lit. Fortunately, the first few titles…
The country house is dead: that’s why we love it so
The true English disease is Downton Syndrome. Symptoms include a yearning for a past of chivalry, grandeur and unambiguously stratified…
The magic of manuscripts
Nothing captures medieval life more vividly than a manuscript that has passed through many hands, says Jonathan Sumption
How 19th-century gold rushes led to a distrust of China
For a brief moment three summers ago it seemed that the clear Idaho air wafting through the Sun Valley Literary…
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