Books

Murder, incest and paedophilia in imperial Rome

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars appears in a vibrant new translation by Tom Holland, the current princeps of popular Roman history

The nerdy obsessive who became the world’s richest man

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Seen by fellow pupils as an obnoxious loner, Bill Gates was a rebellious teenager, challenging his teachers and ‘at war’ with his parents

Inside the Unholy See: the infiltration of the Vatican by foreign powers

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Yvonnick Denoël reveals how, since the mid-20th century, a scandalous number of priests have acted as communist moles

After half a billion years, are sharks heading for extinction?

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Studies suggest that a third of coral reef sharks and more than half of pelagic sharks may be wiped out as a result of overfishing, habitat loss and pollution

A piece of Mars to toy with

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Lunar souvenirs are slumping, but Martian rocks are soaring as today’s super-rich fight to get the best fragments from space on their desks

The strange potency of cheap perfume

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Adelle Stripe has constructed a memoir around 18 key fragrances, but it is the Body Shop’s cheery Dewberry that evokes her worst teenage experience

The plain-speaking bloke from Warrington who painted only for himself

8 February 2025 9:00 am

Born in 1932, Eric Tucker created his art not for exhibition or in pursuit of fame but simply because he felt compelled to do so

The pointlessness of the German Peasants’ War – except in Marxist ideology

8 February 2025 9:00 am

The short-lived 16th-century revolt resolved absolutely nothing, but it loomed large in Engels’s thought and in the official DDR interpretation of history

The need to feel seen: Perfection, by Vincenzo Latronico, reviewed

1 February 2025 9:00 am

A young couple in thrall to the beauty of their Instagrammed life soon grow dissatisfied with reality, and ennui follows them wherever they go

The shards of heaven beneath our feet

1 February 2025 9:00 am

All precious stones are ‘earthly versions of the flickering lights in the night’s sky’, writes Philip Marsden, in a dazzling exploration of the minerals that make up our planet

Xi Jinping’s alarming blueprint for the future

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Kevin Rudd leaves us in no doubt about Xi’s determination to influence foreign governments and increase China’s political and policy leverage over the world’s financial institutions

Visionary tales: Mrs Calder and the Hyena, by Marjorie Ann Watts, reviewed

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Sharply drawn characters, young and old, gleefully challenge conventional judgments and form liberating new friendships in this exhilarating collection of short stories

The queer traditions of King’s College, Cambridge

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Simon Goldhill describes how intimate friendships between students and teachers were actively encouraged, with the college providing a refuge for gay men and helping them define their sexuality

A macabre quest for immortality: Old Soul, by Susan Barker, reviewed

1 February 2025 9:00 am

In a bid to prolong her life indefinitely, a female serial killer preys on lonely individuals, leaving their organs mysteriously rearranged

The pioneering women of modern dance

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Through the lives of nine 20th-century performers, beginning with Isadora Duncan, Sara Veale traces the move away from conventional ballet to a bold new philosophy of dance

Finding your other half in ancient Athens

1 February 2025 9:00 am

According to Aristophanes, human beings were two-bodied before Zeus split them – which is why we spend our lives perpetually searching for our missing partner

The psychological toll of being constantly tracked and harassed

1 February 2025 9:00 am

With smartphones providing hitherto undreamt of opportunities for spying, human rights workers and investigative journalists are left struggling for breath

The international criminal justice system was prejudiced from the start

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Double standards have existed since its foundation in 1945, with the most powerful nations determining who should be held accountable for war crimes

The crude tirades of Cicero the demagogue

25 January 2025 9:00 am

Far from being a crusader for virtue, the Roman statesman is seen as a violent firebrand, disregarding the law when it suited him and laying the groundwork for Julius Caesar’s assassination

Never underestimate the complexities of African history

25 January 2025 9:00 am

Too many commentators, Luke Pepera included, extrapolate from one region they know well to a continent boasting a multitude of religions, languages and ethnic roots

The secret of Gary Lineker’s success

25 January 2025 9:00 am

The Leicester-born striker was neither exceptionally skilful nor assiduous; but he worked out how to score goals, and later excel in broadcasting, through intelligence and calm resilience

For all its fame, the Great Siege of Malta made no difference to the course of history

25 January 2025 9:00 am

The victorious Hospitallers soon subsided into genteel irrelevance, while the Ottomans remained a formidable Mediterranean power for centuries to come

The splatter of green and yellow that caused uproar in the Victorian art world

25 January 2025 9:00 am

A double biography of John Ruskin and James Whistler describes in detail the notorious feud between the prominent critic and the flamboyant post-Impressionist

The self-serving delusions of the ‘Swastika Kaiser’

25 January 2025 9:00 am

With the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II decided he was best off allying himself with the Nazis, and seeing what he could obtain for his family in the process

Why do we assume smell is our weakest sense?

25 January 2025 9:00 am

When it comes to the power of association, smell is unmatched, says Jonas Olofsson. It can take us back to childhood in an instant