More from Books
Victoria Wood: stiletto in an oven glove
Even if you didn’t have an Auntie Dot in Cockermouth (the one who ate a raffia drinks coaster, mistaking it…
How the International Brigades were ‘thrown into the heart of the fire’
During the Spanish civil war of 1936 to 1939, 35,000 men and women from around the world volunteered to fight…
Older and grumpier: A Song for the Dark Times, by Ian Rankin, reviewed
By my reckoning, this is the 24th outing for John Rebus, Scotland’s best known retired police officer. One of the…
Dublin double act: Love, by Roddy Doyle, reviewed
Far be it from me to utter a word against the patron saint of Dublin pubs, Roddy Doyle. Granted he’s…
‘I wonder about his humanity’: Malcolm McDowell on Stanley Kubrick
Twenty-five years after making Spartacus, a parable of Roman decadence and rebellious slaves shot in California, Stanley Kubrick made Full…
Helen Macdonald could charm the birds out of the trees
When Helen Macdonald was a child, she had a way of calming herself during moments of stress: closing her eyes,…
Break-out and betrayal in Occupied Europe
Für dich, Tommy, ist der Krieg vorbei. However, many British servicemen, officers especially, didn’t want their war to be over.…
Appearances are deceptive: Trio, by William Boyd, reviewed
Talbot Kydd, film producer; Anny Viklund, American actress; Elfrida Wing, novelist; these make the trio of the title. Private lives…
Breakdown in Berlin: Red Pill, by Hari Kunzru, reviewed
‘I was what they call an “independent scholar”’, confides the narrator of Hari Kunzru’s Red Pill, a middle-aged writer from…
Shock and awe — what should we make of our Viking ancestors?
In June 793, a raiding force arrived by boat at the island monastery of Lindisfarne, on the Northumbrian coast. The…
Hitler’s devastating secret weapon: V2, by Robert Harris, reviewed
After Stalingrad, Hitler desperately needed an encouraging novelty. Wernher von Braun, Germany’s leading rocketeer in the second world war, expertly…
Opposites attract: Just Like You, by Nick Hornby, reviewed
Babysitters are having a literary moment. Following Kiley Reid’s debut Such a Fun Age, Nick Hornby is the latest author…
Julius Caesar’s assassins were widely regarded as heroes in Rome
It’s not as if Julius Caesar wasn’t warned about the Ides of March. Somebody thrust a written prediction of the…
What the sonnets tell us about Shakespeare
When Romeo and Juliet first meet at a party, their words to one another fall into the form of a…
A melting pot of mercenaries: Afterlives, by Abdulrazak Gurnah, reviewed
‘That was how that part of the world was at the time. Every bit of it belonged to Europeans, at…
Full of desperate longing: Unquiet, by Linn Ullmann, reviewed
The scrawny little girl with ‘pipe-cleaner legs’ wants to feel at home with her parents. But father and mother live…
Surrounded by sea and sky: the irresistible draw of islands
Holiday islands, desert islands, love islands, islands of eternal youth, siren islands, islands filled with screaming demons. Of all the…
The ‘unremarkable’ life of SS officer Robert Griesinger
In October 2011 Daniel Lee was at a dinner party at which a Dutch woman told a disturbing story. It…
A cat’s-eye view of 18th-century social history
Jeoffry is, by now, one of the best-known cats in literary history. And unlike the Cheshire Cat, Mr Mistoffelees, Orlando,…
We all love a poltergeist story
There are fashions in the paranormal as in everything else. Since the famous Enfield hauntings of the late 1970s, poltergeists…
Gazing heavenwards: the medieval monks who mapped the planetary motions
We can probably blame George and Ira Gershwin. It was that brilliant duo who, in 1937, penned the memorable lyric…
Too many of our children are battling severe depression
Christopher Hitchens once said that women just aren’t as funny as men and Caitlin Moran believed him. But that was…
Born to be wild: the plight of salmon worldwide
In the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans paint images of salmon on to stones. They say that if you rub those…
Tenderness and sorrow: Inside Story, by Martin Amis, reviewed
Inside Story is called, on the front cover, which boasts a very charming photograph of the author and Christopher Hitchens,…
French lessons, with tears: inside a Lyonnais kitchen
You can’t say he didn’t warn us. In the final sentence of his previous book, Heat, a joyously gluttonous exploration…
