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Women of no importance
From their brothels in lawless 1850s Monterrey, Eliza and Jean set out discover why their fellow workers are going missing
Sidney Reilly, Ace of Spies, remains an enigma
‘James Bond is just a piece of nonsense I dreamt up,’ the former naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming once said.…
Tears and laughter: We All Want Impossible Things, by Catherine Newman, reviewed
Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and she’s craving the lemon cake she once got from Dean & Deluca deli…
A treasury of wisdom about the writing life
In the penultimate entry of Toby Litt’s A Writer’s Diary, an autofictional daily record of a writer named Toby Litt…
What did indigenous Americans make of Europe?
The most influential Native American visitor to Europe in colonial times was a fiction. The protagonist of L’Ingénu, Voltaire’s novel…
The films of Quentin Tarantino’s childhood
The X-rated movies he’d seen by the age of ten included Deliverance, Taxi Driver and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – which he’d then discuss with his child psychologist
Singeing the King of Spain’s beard was one provocation too many
According to a new history of the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth I was chiefly to blame for the crisis of 1588
Nehru’s plans for a new India were sadly short-lived
Despite the leader’s commitment to secularism and democracy, the persecution of Muslims and Dalits continued after independence
Hiding out in wartime Italy: A Silence Shared, by Lalla Romano
Giulia retreats to her isolated farmhouse to avoid bombardment in Turin, and grows increasingly attached to the partisan couple she shelters
Not just wet, but ‘dripping wet’ – how the tabloids viewed Lord Woolf
The former Lord Chief Justice confesses that some of his liberal ideas didn’t turn out so well in practice
The Hope Diamond brought nothing but despair
Hettie Judah describes how its various owners were plagued by bankruptcy, divorce, suicide, madness – and savaging by wild dogs
The Britain Elizabeth II acceded to was barely recognisable within a decade
Steam trains, historic monuments and the family grocer were replaced by motorways, tower blocks and supermarkets. But at least there was humaner legislation
When street hawkers were a vital part of London life
Unfairly dismissed as hucksters and fishwives, itinerant traders drove the capital’s expansion for centuries, says Charlie Taverner
Britain’s lost rainforests
Guy Shrubsole laments that the temperate rainforest that once covered a fifth of Britain has now shrunk to pitiful fragments on its western fringe
Man on the run: Sugar Street, by Jonathan Dee, reviewed
How long can a fugitive avoid detection after holing up in a city ‘big enough to be anonymous in’?
The true meaning of Jesus’s radical message
David Lloyd Dusenbury finds Jesus a ‘philosophically intriguing’ figure – and much bigger than a ‘mere’ revolutionary
The art of exclamation marks!
For centuries, grammarians considered it vulgar and warned against using it too freely – but Jane Austen saw the point of it, says Florence Hazrat
The life of Elizabeth Taylor was non-stop drama
Kate Andersen Brower has had access to the vast, unpublished archive of Hollywood’s queen - famed for her beauty, diamonds and unhappy marriages
Luminous fables: Night Train to the Stars, by Kenji Miyazawa, reviewed
A downcast cellist discovers that his music cures sick mice and rabbits in one of many tales featuring talking animals in eerie, folkloric landscapes
A fierce defiance: Love Me Tender, by Constance Debré, reviewed
Separated from her husband, Constance trains herself to be ‘indestructible’ while awaiting a ruling over custody of their son
Caring for the dying in a world of Zoom
James Runcie’s harrowing account of his wife’s last days during lockdown includes blackly comic descriptions of trying to follow nursing instructions on YouTube
There are no ‘correct’ recipes when it comes to pasta
Luca Cesari argues that pasta is a living thing, changing with the times, and has never been bound by tradition, as the vigilante nonnas insist
Bob Dylan’s idea of modern song is nothing of the sort
Most of the 66 songs he discusses in a collection of meditative essays date from the late 1940s to the advent of punk – a movement that evidently passed him by
Lord of the dance: the genius of George Balanchine
Balanchine described himself as ‘a cloud in trousers’ – and Jennifer Homans perfectly captures the earthly man and his ethereal gift
The depressing durability of dictatorships
Authoritarian regimes that have emerged out of violent social revolutions have survived on average three times as long as their non-revolutionary counterparts