Books
An excellent spy: Cold Sunset, by William Boyd, reviewed
Tasked with exfiltrating a secret agent from Moscow, Gabriel Dax shows himself as competent as ever: good at following people, good at laying traps and good at shooting to kill
We must stop treating soil like dirt
Frank Ashwood’s illuminating guide to the hidden world beneath our feet convinces us of its complexity, vulnerability and supreme importance to all life
The wonder of ancient English parish churches
From Saxon sundials to medieval Doom paintings, our village churches hold the key to English art, history, architecture, character and even language
A world full of artifice: Life of M, by Rachel Cusk, reviewed
Cusk’s beautiful actress protagonist claims to shun the advantages of fame – but fabrication and privilege are essential to her glide through life
How black music changed the world
Three new books describe the global influence of black alternative music, from blues, jazz and hip-hop to dub, rap and dancehall
Could we bring back the Great Auk?
Many species that once bulked large in the British consciousness have vanished. But what if we could ‘de-extinct’ the flightless, penguin-like seabird?
Would Eve Babitz really have wanted her unsent letters published?
Bridget Jones on acid is how Babitz emerges in private, measuring her days in pounds, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol and failed love affairs
Why Mussolini still fascinates Italians
There was never a proper reckoning with fascism in Italy, as there was at Nuremberg – and even today the Duce is wrapped in ‘a strange and irrational aura’, says Stephen Gundle
Will this century see the end of books?
James Marriott warns of the threat to truth and the flourishing of mad fantasies as we become increasingly reliant on screens for online information and entertainment
The spellbinding power of the du Maurier family
Daphne du Maurier’s grandson examines his forebears’ imaginative understanding of the collective unconscious and their uncanny feel for what the public wanted
The enigma of Juba II, ‘the most fortunate captive ever taken’
The Numidian prince, raised in Julius Caesar’s household, remains a shadowy figure, but we get some good stories about his contemporaries, including Pliny the Elder and the Emperor Caligula
From housemaid to monster: The Mare, by Angharad Hampshire, reviewed
Drawing on the real-life story of Hermine Braunsteiner, a former Ravensbrück camp guard, Hampshire convincingly demonstrates how apparently harmless people can become brutal murderers
How have we allowed star ratings to take over our lives?
In a commodified world that now seems inescapable we score each other on dating apps as casually as we might a vacuum cleaner or a takeaway
‘I always had a good life’: the boast of the 1970s’ most notorious terrorist
Carlos the Jackal, responsible for shooting mainly unarmed people point-blank, will live comfortably in a French prison for the rest of his days – a celebrity to inmates and visitors
Always second but actually invincible: Agrippa, by Robert Harris, reviewed
The Roman general’s inner life is a blank, as Harris admits – but filling it with memories of military campaigns and aqueduct-building doesn’t make for the liveliest story
Shots in the dark: Fatal Love, by Louisa Treger, reviewed
The tragic story of Ruth Ellis, hanged in 1955 for murdering her abusive lover, is retold in gripping fictional form
‘A wonderful, wacky woman’: a tribute to Betty Freedman
The gifted pianist, photographer and art collector had an extraordinary love of the contemporary, and this account of her friendship with David Hockney is deeply moving
Finally – an authoritative, stimulating history of the modern Middle East
Ranging from Sudan to Azerbaijan, Simon Sebag Montefiore’s balanced account provides us with the necessary background to form our own views of what’s happening in the region
The mind-altering miracle of the novel in Britain, from A to Z
Philip Hensher reminds us of the transformative power of fiction over the centuries – from Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic experiments to Zadie Smith’s bone-deep knowledge of the form
What Israel can learn from its long history of sectarianism
Amotz Asa-El examines how, since Biblical times, the rigid separation of tribes resulted in frequent civil wars, disastrous conflicts with foreign powers and lengthy periods of exile
A heady cocktail of coquetry and extortion: The Millionaire Waltz, by Anthony Quinn, reviewed
Edie Greenlaw, model, actress and socialite in 1920s London, is drawn into a case of homosexual blackmail after trying to help a friend
The tiny island in the wild North Atlantic that ‘feels like the safest place in the world’
As Tim Ecott observes the breeding seabirds on the loneliest of the Faroe Islands, he experiences a sense of belonging to a secret kingdom
How a young inventor with no printing experience revolutionised the newspaper world
Four centuries after Johannes Gutenberg, another German, Ottmar Mergenthaler, would spark an information revolution with his invention of the Linotype machine
A question of identity: Passage, by Colin Thubron, reviewed
A subtle novella involving a desperate act of betrayal in the Valley of the Kings is also an investigation of who we really are and what will remain of us after death
Do we really want to live in a world where we’re perpetually spied on?
We are now approaching the point where the Stasi dream is achieved globally. But the more surveillance expands, the more ineffective it becomes
