More from Books
Jesus the radical
David Lloyd Dusenbury finds Jesus a ‘philosophically intriguing’ figure – and much bigger than a ‘mere’ revolutionary
Surprise! Surprise!
For centuries, grammarians considered it vulgar and warned against using it too freely – but Jane Austen saw the point of it, says Florence Hazrat
Queen of Hollywood
Kate Andersen Brower has had access to the vast, unpublished archive of Hollywood’s queen - famed for her beauty, diamonds and unhappy marriages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
A downcast cellist discovers that his music cures sick mice and rabbits in one of many tales featuring talking animals in eerie, folkloric landscapes
I will survive
Separated from her husband, Constance trains herself to be ‘indestructible’ while awaiting a ruling over custody of their son
A bird with one wing
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
Rage over ragù
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
A mystifying miscellany
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
Balanchine described himself as ‘a cloud in trousers’ – and Jennifer Homans perfectly captures the earthly man and his ethereal gift
Staying power
Authoritarian regimes that have emerged out of violent social revolutions have survived on average three times as long as their non-revolutionary counterparts
Doing good business
Ever since the societas publicanorum, corporations have been linked with the common good, carrying out projects for which the state is ill-equipped
Spot the book title
For answers, click here The post Spot the book title appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join…
A memorial to the Bonapartes
The empress Eugénie – the Spanish-born last empress-consort of France, wife of Napoleon III, mother of the prince imperial –…
The holy sinner
There are a few pop stars whose work I can’t help liking in spite of myself – their song-writing, that…
Behind palace doors
Apart from when the government has been self-immolating, the royal family has dominated the news recently: the passing of Queen…
What Meghan got
In June 2017 Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, was surprised when Jane Sarkin, his features editor, told him…
Bad old Boston
The American poet Robert Lowell (1917-77) was a so-called ‘Boston Brahmin’, a Lowell of Boston, where, in the widely known…
Bony horsemen and miller’s thumbs
Despite its many centuries of popularity – enthusiasts have ranged from Cleopatra to Eric Clapton – angling has been the…
Braggart and bully
Brawling, boozing and womanising, those vaunted hell-raisers of the 1960s – Peter O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton and, of course,…
A calm authority
In Keep Talking, David Dimbleby takes us through a gentle romp of a stellar, unrivalled broadcasting career spanning, incredibly, 70…
The unseeing eye
Stefan Hertmans is dismayed to discover that his home was once owned by a Flemish collaborator with the SS
The making of a masterpiece
But does Matthew Hollis understand the poem as well he understands the manual action of a Corona?
This misbegotten war
Putin’s new army looked lean and mean, but old, inherent weaknesses persisted: over-rigid commanders, demoralised soldiers and shaky logistics
