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How a humiliating defeat secured Britain its empire
After the Amboyna massacre of 1623, the newly-fledged East India Company conceded the spice trade to the Dutch – to focus instead on the riches of India
Woman of mystery
A counterfactual history of modern America serves as a backdrop to the life of the enigmatic ‘X’ – a woman of multiple personae and impenetrable disguises
Family friction
In the wake of their father’s death, a brother and sister recall the violent domestic dramas of their childhood
Find the lady: Tomás Nevinson, by Javier Marías, reviewed
A merciless ETA terrorist is in hiding in Spain – but which of three seemingly innocent women is she?
The fall of the Berlin Wall promised Europe a bright future – so what went wrong?
Timothy Garton Ash weighs the consequences of the push towards a single currency, the West’s dependence for energy on Russia, and Brexit, among much else
A Faustian bargain
Under the much-vaunted new secularism, Muslims were treated as second-class citizens at best - and were often the victims of mass pogroms
Our struggle to concentrate is nothing new
The buzz of modernity has plagued us since the Industrial Revolution – but even Thoreau tired of practising his ‘habit of attention’ at Walden Pond
Together and apart
Death permeates these stories, as Nell – a stand-in for Atwood – mourns the loss of her beloved partner Tig
A surreal account of lockdown
A complex novel explores the ways we try to understand a world that isn’t good or fair or causal or even comprehensible
The relationship between self and singer
If opera is acting, concealing the self behind a character, where does that leave the singer in the concert hall, caught between ventriloquist and dummy, wonders Ian Bostridge
The chaos of coronations over the centuries
From the mass panic of William the Conqueror’s to the drunken mayhem of Victoria’s, few coronations have passed off entirely peacefully
No happy endings
Traditional fairy tales are transposed to a modern setting and given a thrilling – often terrifying – twist
What can we learn of George Eliot through her heroines?
Eliot guarded her privacy closely, but her novels explore themes of sacrifice and restraint, and her heroines are studies in the impossibility of having it all
Did the sinking of the Blücher in 1940 affect the outcome of the war?
The answer is, we shall never know – but one Norwegian colonel’s quick decision may have ensured Churchill’s premiership and the success of Dunkirk
Growing old disgracefully
Five women in their nineties dine together monthly, keeping loneliness at bay with gossip, advice and reminiscence
Out of the depths
Sexually assaulted as a teenager, Christiana Spens describes her life of perpetual anxiety – until the birth of her son ‘transforms everything’
How hardboiled detective fiction saved James Ellroy
After his mother’s murder, the teenage Ellroy seemed lost to speed and alcohol – until his discovery of crime writing led to a different addiction
Strange meeting
When distraught teenage Orla embarks on a secret pilgrimage to her mother’s grave, she meets a ‘mad hairy’ man with miraculous powers
The long journey from Lindisfarne: Cuddy, by Benjamin Myers, reviewed
St Cuthbert’s body, rescued from the ‘devilish Danes’, is carried for hundreds of years to its eventual shrine in Durham cathedral
The wiliest politician in the Middle East is back – but not in charge
Benjamin Netanyahu has won a staggering sixth term in office – but his alliance with the disreputable right is inching Israel close to catastrophe
Carry on curate: scenes of modern clerical life
The Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie regales us with stories of mistaken identity, hymns with erotic undertones and an archbishop’s surprising take on Lenten penance
Nothing really matters
A mathematics professor, who specialises in the idea of nothing, is approached by a would-be Bond villain with a dastardly plan of annihilation
Promises, promises
But the big ideas seem mainly to consist in acquiring new skills – like boxing and baking – and flexing the imagination muscle
The age-old debate continues: are science and religion compatible?
Nicholas Spencer insists they are – and his scientific knowledge is impressive. But do his religious arguments carry weight?
Living with the Xingu in deepest Amazonia
The Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum moves from São Paulo to ‘reforest’ herself in the Amazon, and slowly gains the trust of a wary, isolated tribal people
