More from Books
The mystery of Rapa Nui’s moai may be solved
The vast, painstakingly carved stone figures are thought to represent ancestors – and their partial destruction to signify punishment for their failure as guardians
Is China riding for a fall?
Dan Wang contrasts the dynamism of China’s physical engineering programme with the madness of its social engineering – the one-child policy threatening to prove a demographic disaster
My husband first and last – by Lalla Romano
In a touching memoir, Romano describes a shared intellectual life with Innocenzo Monti, from their first meeting in the Piedmont mountains to their final months together
The short, restless life of Robert Louis Stevenson
The frail but hugely successful writer broke away from his Presbyterian roots to pursue a life of travel before finally settling with his wife in remote Samoa
The concept of ‘the West’ seems to mean anything you like
First formulated by Auguste Comte in the 19th century, its later proponents would even embrace Japan while questioning the inclusion of belligerent Germany
A simple life fraught with difficulties: Ruth, by Kate Riley, reviewed
The eponymous protagonist struggles against the strictures of her Anabaptist upbringing whereby women cook, clean and police each other’s morals
The joyless rants of Andrea Long Chu
The critic’s modishly provocative takedowns of successful contemporary writers, signed off with vapid aphorisms, make for dispiriting rather than stimulating reading
Sebastian Faulks looks back on youth and lost idealism
The novelist describes key moments in his life from boarding school onwards in essays originally intended to discuss ‘the things that have meant the most to me’
Courage and humour in the face of unimaginable grief
Miriam Toews meditates on suicide, silence and the messiness of survival as she attempts to answer the question: ‘Why Do I Write’?
Art and radicalism in 1930s Britain
Andy Friend describes the first decade of the AIA, a vital movement that blended art and politics in the fight against international fascism
Horoscopes and horror – the reign of Septimius Severus
Notoriously brutal and superstitious, Rome’s first African emperor was responsible for killing of his rivals on an unprecedented scale as well as genocide against the Scots
On the trail of a missing masterpiece: What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
In the archipelago-republic of 22nd-century Britain, a literary scholar becomes obsessed with a long-vanished sonnet sequence and the woman who inspired it
Ignorance, madness or folly – what exactly constitutes stupidity?
In a picturesque ramble through world civilisation, Stuart Jeffries proposes some answers
Alchemy – the ultimate fool’s errand
Secretive, expensive and doomed to failure, the business of turning base metal to gold nevertheless occupied scholars for centuries
Will we resist the bacteria of the future?
Due to the chronic overuse of antibiotics, the proliferation of certain impervious strains now represents one of the world’s most urgent health threats
Whitehall farce: Clown Town, by Mick Herron, reviewed
The implication of a senior government figure in murky dealings during the Troubles presents new problems for Jackson Lamb and his Slow Horses
The word ‘artisanal’ has lost its meaning and dignity
The proud, skilled crafts it once described, such as thatching and coppicing, were part of life’s necessities – unlike the ‘handmade’ candles, chutneys and chocolates we now associate with it
The ‘idiot Disneyland’ of Sin City
With his marriage to Joan Didion in difficulties, John Gregory Dunne decamps to Nevada in the early 1970s to capture the dying days of Vegas sleaze
Hell is other academics: Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang, reviewed
A postgraduate student of ‘Analytic Magick’ must rescue the soul of her thesis supervisor from campus hell or risk being stuck in academic limbo on Earth
Relations with Europe provide the key to British postwar politics
Tom McTague shows how the two most consequential decisions for Britain over the past 80 years have been entering the European Union in 1973 and leaving it in 2020
The grand life writ small: a history of modern British aristocracy
Prewar, they thought their future was secure, but death duties and heavy taxation brought a huge change in circumstance – to which some have valiantly responded. Pen portraits of peers and historical perspective bring this tale of diminishment to vivid life
Music to some ears: how 20th-century classical music led to pop
You can easily draw a line from John Cage to Sonic Youth – but Elizabeth Aker’s book does not really tell you how
Dirty work: The Expansion Project, by Ben Pester, reviewed
A debut novel with echoes of Kafka, Flaubert and the office sitcom, this is a tale of one man’s days on the treadmill of life that is both poignant and disconcerting
No stone unturned: the art of communing with rocks
If a river can be considered a living thing, why not stones and rocks? They bear witness to thousands of years of history and have spoken to us long before the formation of language itself. We just need to learn to listen
Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip?
Sarah Ditum 6 September 2025 9:00 am
When oversharing – and even inventing – stories of personal trauma is considered ‘validating’ and laudable we are in real trouble, says Darren McGarvey, speaking from experience