Lead book review
The Mean One
We have all become Paul Kagame’s useful idiots, says Nicholas Shakespeare
Sense without sensibility
Philip Hensher feels he should be on Jordan Peterson’s side, but finds it a struggle
Crying in the wilderness
Even Edward Said would not have claimed to be ‘the 20th century’s most celebrated intellectual’. But neither was he ‘Professor of Terror’, says Justin Marozzi
More gossip and scandal
Chips Channon was conceited, snobbish, disloyal, voyeuristic and wrongheaded – all qualities most helpful to a great diarist, says Craig Brown
‘Just a poor boy – like me’
As the Great War unfolds, voices we don’t usually hear describe with a terrible raw honesty the realities of their experience, says David Crane
And then there were three
Lara Feigel tells of the passion, pain and sexual exploitation involved in Elizabeth Bowen’s affair with a young married scholar
Reinventing the superhero
If Marvel characters seem dysfunctional, just look at their creators, says Dorian Lynskey
A thoroughly modern Romantic
Keats is a much stranger poet than we tend to realise – who shocked his first readers by his vulgarity and gross indecency, says Philip Hensher
Escape into reality
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an ambitious, passionate, determined woman – not the sad-eyed invalid of legend, says Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Learning from the Russians
Viv Groskop takes a masterclass in the art of the short story
The girl from Tennessee
Dolly Parton is the living embodiment of America’s best values, says Philip Hensher
Private passions of a public moralist
Ruth Scurr reveals what an impulsive, life-loving individual Mary Wollstonecraft was
A broad church under threat
The future of conservatism depends crucially on its ability to withstand the new hard right, says William Hague
The real jewel of the Nile
The decipherment of the Rosetta Stone led to bitter feuding – but there was mutual curiosity and collaboration too, says Elizabeth Frood
The greater glory of Roy
Stephen Bayley recalls his (mainly enjoyable) encounters with the flamboyant former museum director
A study in realpolitik
Barack Obama was famous for his rhetoric, but his achievements show just what a steely political operator he was too, says Sam Leith
Classic misconceptions
Harold Bloom devoted his life to literature – but he had little feeling for words, says Philip Hensher
Books of the year II
David Crane If nothing else, this has been a good time for catch-up. Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest (translated by Walter…
Books of the year I
Reviewers choose the books they have most enjoyed in 2020 – and a few that have disappointed them
From hard tack to trifle
Prue Leith traces the biscuit’s surprisingly colourful history
Battered old bear
The Prime Minister may have lost his bounce –but perhaps that’s no bad thing, says Lynn Barber
Top-level intelligence
The brilliance of GCHQ can now be recognised – and about time too, says Sinclair McKay
A walk on the Wilde side
Philip Hensher admires a witty account of the horrors of modern film-making
Spells and bindings
Dennis Duncan enjoys some of the world’s most bizarre books
A playwright at play
Tom Stoppard is a non-stop genius of jokes – but many of them make his latest biographer uneasy, says Craig Raine
