Lead book review

England’s 100 best Views, by Simon Jenkins - review

5 October 2013 9:00 am

Sam Leith is transported by the finest scenery in England

Colette’s France, by Jane Gilmour - review

28 September 2013 9:00 am

Richard Davenport-Hines on the charmed, dizzy world of the multi-talented Colette

To 'Flufftail' from 'Pinkpaws': The Animals is only good for celebrity-spotting

21 September 2013 9:00 am

The correspondence between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy is good for celebrity-spotting but too cloyingly self-absorbed to be of wider interest, says D. J. Taylor

Why does Max Hastings have such a hatred for the British military?

14 September 2013 9:00 am

David Crane is taken aback by the particular contempt Max Hastings appears to reserve for the British at the outbreak of the first world war

Danubia, by Simon Winder - review

7 September 2013 9:00 am

The inbred Habsburg monarchs, who for centuries ruled without method over a vast, ramshackle empire, managed to leave an indelible mark on modern Europe, says Sam Leith

The Rocks Don’t Lie, by David R. Montgomery - review

31 August 2013 9:00 am

James McConnachie finds that theology and geology have been unlikely bedfellows for centuries

The Huguenots, by Geoffrey Treasure - review

24 August 2013 9:00 am

There could be no backsliding while preparing the next plot, murder or battle in the French Wars of Religion, says Hywel Williams

The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, edited by Andrew Jewell - review

17 August 2013 9:00 am

Richard Davenport-Hines on the tomboy from Red Cloud whose evocation of the vast, unforgiving landscape of the prairies is unrivalled

Tudor, by Leanda de Lisle - review

10 August 2013 9:00 am

The Tudors, England’s most glamorous ruling dynasty, were self-invented parvenus, with ‘vile and barbarous’ origins, Anne Somerset reminds us

Glorious Misadventures, by Owen Mathews - review

3 August 2013 9:00 am

The brutality and folly of Russia’s bid to conquer America has the makings of grand tragicomedy says Sam Leith

Edwardian Opulence, edited by Angus Trumble - review

27 July 2013 9:00 am

Margaret MacMillan says that the ostentation of the Edwardian Age focuses the mind painfully on the horror that was so quickly to follow

‘Imperial Federation showing the map of the world, British Empire’, by Captain J.C. Colombo, c.1886 (Royal Geographical Society, London)

Churchill and Empire, by Lawrence James - a review

20 July 2013 9:00 am

Philip Hensher says that Churchill’s engagement with the empire does not reveal him at his finest hour

Disraeli, by Douglas Hurd; The Great Rivalry, by Dick Leonard - review

13 July 2013 9:00 am

Sam Leith finds shades of Jeffrey Archer and Boris Johnson in the 19th-century prime minister

Music & Monarchy, by David Starkey - review

6 July 2013 9:00 am

Music has always been integral to the image and power of monarchy. Our present Royal family should take note, says Jonathan Keate