Lead book review
Forgetting was the best defence for the Kindertransport refugees
Alfred and Doris Moritz remained largely silent about their persecution in Nazi Germany, having tried their best to erase the memory, according to their son Michael
Leonardo Sciascia and the reshaping of the detective novel
Crimes go unpunished while injustice is upheld and truth perverted. Such is the Mafia reality, according to the saturnine Sciascia
Imposing Christianity on Europe’s last pagans
The heroic deeds of the Teutonic knights were once part of Germany’s foundational myth. Now the black cross is associated with the swastika and Hitlerian schemes of expansion
The last chapter: Departure(s), by Julian Barnes, reviewed
Aged 80, the Booker prize-winning novelist bids farewell to his devoted readers in a masterpiece of narrative trickery
The spiritual yearnings of David Bowie
Gnosticism was one of Bowie’s lifelong obsessions and the outer reaches of religious thought inspired many of his lyrics
Carlo Scarpa’s artful management of light and space
The startling interventions and adaptations of a great 20th-century Venetian architect and designer are examined in detail by Federica Goffi
The extraordinary courage of Germany’s wartime ‘traitors’
With Nazi informers everywhere, any dissident risked betrayal – and the prospect of being hanged ‘like slaughtered cattle’ for ‘defeatism’
John Updike’s letters overflow with lust, ambition, guilt and shame
‘Affairs are cruel, and if they are sin, they carry the punishment with them’, he wrote to one of the many women he cheated on throughout a long life
Jessica was the only Mitford worth taking seriously
But her unfailing humour does help lighten a solid new biography that focuses on her tireless campaign for social justice
Is ‘wind drought’ the latest climate catastrophe?
In an enjoyable guide to wind-related topics, Simon Winchester reports that terrestrial wind speeds are mysteriously declining and we are now in the grip of ‘the Great Stilling’
What do Oscar Wilde, Gwen John and Evelyn Waugh have in common?
They converted to Catholicism in the past century and are among 12 notable ‘defectors to Rome’ examined by Melanie McDonagh
Books of the Year II – further recommendations from our regular reviewers
Popular choices include: Look Closer, by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst; Clown Town, by Mick Herron; The Finest Hotel in Kabul, by Lyse Doucet
Books of the Year I – chosen by our regular reviewers
Popular choices include Merlin Holland’s After Oscar, Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know and Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection
Are Vermeer’s paintings really coded religious messages?
‘View of Delft’ is not just a representation of some buildings seen across a stretch of dullish water but a vision of the celestial city, argues Andrew Graham-Dixon
Funny, absorbing and as noir as noir can be: Thomas Pynchon rides again
The elusive novelist’s latest starts off complicated and then rapidly gets more so with its knot of gangsters, thugs, wacky inventors, spies, cops, political operatives and their accomplices
Robin Holloway lambasts some of our most beloved composers
Works by Strauss, Holst, Rossini, Schoenberg and Wagner are all targeted, while Hildegard of Bingen’s music is pronounced a ‘psychedelic bore’
Since when did the English love to queue?
Far from being an ancient trait, the ‘irksome novelty’ dates from 1939, according to Graham Robb – whose idiosyncratic history of Britain corrects many erroneous beliefs
The young Tennyson reaches for the stars
Richard Holmes describes how the poet’s early fascination with science – astronomy and geology in particular – would have a lasting influence on his writing
What has the reparations movement ever done for victims of modern slavery?
Until now it has focused on extracting trillions from European governments in compensation for historic crimes while ignoring horrors still being perpetrated today
Exploring the enchanted gardens of literature
Sandra Lawrence transports us to the gnarled yews of Tom’s Midnight Garden, the scent of azaleas at Manderley and the Pillow Book’s chrysanthemums glistening with dew
There’s something about Marianne – but can French identity be defined?
The Parisian public belongs to ‘all classes and creeds’, yet the sounds, smells and street furniture remain unmistakably French, says Andrew Hussey
Christopher Marlowe, the spy who changed literature for ever
The 16th-century playwright led a violent, tempestuous and clandestine short life but alone among his contemporaries he speaks to us in a familiar way
‘I’m tired of your ridiculous lies’ – the wrath of Muriel Spark
The novelist’s main targets were her hapless editors at Macmillan and her former lover Derek Stanford – recipients of many vituperative early letters
‘I’ve taken to sleeping in my teeth’ – the wartime admissions of T.S. Eliot
‘I’m getting to be a wambling old codger’…‘I haven’t got enough phlegm to undress’, writes the poet, exhausted by readings and broadcasts, in letters spanning 1942-44
A century of western meddling in Iran
British involvement with the Pahlavis from the 1920s and postwar US policy were contributory factors to the revolution and the worsening of relations since
