Lead book review

The nightmare continues

11 February 2023 9:00 am

The Cultural Revolution may have been officially forgotten, but it will always haunt Xinran and her generation

Has Salman Rushdie become his own pastiche?

4 February 2023 9:00 am

Salman Rushdie returns to India with a full-throated mix of history, magic realism and dazzling storytelling, says James Walton

Here be dragons, dog-headed men and women growing on trees

28 January 2023 9:00 am

Justin Marozzi celebrates the medieval naturalist Zakariyya Qazwini and his breathtaking bid to capture the marvels of creation

The radicals of 17th-century England began to think the unthinkable

18 January 2023 10:00 pm

Few periods match the British 17th century for turmoil and idealism.No wonder historians have repeatedly been drawn to it, says Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Spare reviewed: Harry is completely disingenuous – or an idiot

14 January 2023 9:00 am

What makes the Duke of Sussex believe he can lead a charge against practitioners of the written word, wonders Philip Hensher

The imaginative energy of Katherine Mansfield

7 January 2023 9:00 am

Claire Harman discusses ten of Mansfield’s short stories in connection with her tragically short life

The collectors’ obsession with rare medieval manuscripts

17 December 2022 9:00 am

Jonathan Sumption describes the age-old obsession of bibliophiles with acquiring rare illuminated manuscripts

Tales of old Hollywood are always entertaining – even when they’re apocryphal

10 December 2022 9:00 am

If the early days lacked glamour, they certainly provided the best anecdotes, according to a new oral history

Friedrich Hayek: a great political thinker rather than a great economist

3 December 2022 9:00 am

Robert Skidelsky follows Friedrich Hayek’s progression from technical economics to political thinking after his battles with John Maynard Keynes

Anne Glenconner: ‘I took my courage from Princess Margaret’  

26 November 2022 9:00 am

At times Anne Glenconner seems like a Craig Brown parody – but no, she really exists, and we must celebrate her, says Hermione Eyre

A sunken wreck of a novel: Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger reviewed

19 November 2022 9:00 am

A great talent is wasted in Cormac McCarthy’s meandering tale of a mysterious plane crash and its aftermath, says Philip Hensher

Books of the year II – chosen by our regular reviewers

12 November 2022 9:00 am

A further selection of recent books enjoyed by our regular reviewers – and a few that have disappointed them

Books of the Year I — chosen by our regular reviewers

5 November 2022 9:00 am

Our regular reviewers choose the books they have most enjoyed reading in 2022

Who needed who most? The complex bond between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby

29 October 2022 9:00 am

Claudia FitzHerbert explores the complex bond between two remarkable writers in the interwar years

We love you, Uncle Xi!

22 October 2022 9:00 am

Tom Miller on the cult of personality that China’s ‘core leader’ has so ruthlessly constructed

A complex, driven, unhappy man: the truth about John le Carré

15 October 2022 9:00 am

Adam Sisman on the private life of John le Carré, revealed in letters and a kiss-and-tell

The lonely passions of Emily Hale and Mary Trevelyan

8 October 2022 9:00 am

Tom Williams describes how two women’s hopes of marrying T.S. Eliot came to nothing

The unpleasant truth about Joseph Roth

1 October 2022 9:00 am

The Radetzky March must be one of the dozen greatest European novels – but its author was frighteningly unpleasant, says Philip Hensher

Vaughan Williams’s genius is now beyond dispute

24 September 2022 9:00 am

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s towering position in our national life is now beyond dispute – and can only grow, says Simon Heffer

The sheer tedium of life at Colditz

17 September 2022 9:00 am

Given the prisoners’ histories, it’s not surprising there were so many attempted breakouts from Colditz, says Clare Mulley

Ian McEwan’s capacity for reinvention is astonishing

10 September 2022 9:00 am

Ian McEwan’s latest novel is unusually long and autobiographical. It’s surprising in other ways, too, says Claire Lowdon

An old Encyclopaedia Britannica is a work to cherish

3 September 2022 9:00 am

The encyclopaedias of the past were volumes to be savoured – even if they often contained unsavoury views, says Rose George

How the quarrelsome ‘Jena set’ paved the way for Hitler

27 August 2022 9:00 am

Frances Wilson describes a group of self-obsessed intellectuals united by mutual loathing in a small university town in the 1790s

Nothing is certain in Russia, where the past is constantly rewritten

20 August 2022 9:00 am

Nothing is certain in a country where the past is constantly rewritten, says Owen Matthews

Our long, vulnerable childhoods may be the key to our success

13 August 2022 9:00 am

Could our long journey to adulthood actually be the key to our success, wonders Sam Leith