More from Books
Accentuate the negative
For many years, Michel Houellebecq was patronised by the French literary establishment as an upstart, what with his background in…
Memory test
On page 231 of The Candy House, a sequel – no, a ‘sibling’ says Jennifer Egan – to the Pulitzer…
The great divide
Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning recent film Belfast chronicles the travails of a Protestant family amid sectarian conflict in 1969. Louise Kennedy’s…
That way madness lies
There is a trend for books in which academics write personally about their engagement with literature. Examples include Lara Feigel’s…
A catalogue of invented tongues
The comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his stage persona as the dim-witted interviewer Ali G, once asked Noam Chomsky if…
The crop of gold
Publishers love books with ambitious subtitles such as ‘How Bubblegum Made the Modern World’, and this one’s, about American wheat…
Strong opinionsloosely held
In his 2005 book What The Dormouse Said John Markoff traced the roots of the personal computer industry to the…
A Frankenstein device
For as long as we have been human we have looked for some way of telling when we are being…
A true European
Virginia Woolf admitted to her journal: ‘I haven’t that reality gift.’ Her contemporary Arnold Bennett had it in spades. He…
Women on the warpath
One thing that Covid lockdown made us appreciate was the importance of being outdoors. When we were finally allowed into…
The worst of friends
First the bad news: Nina Stibbe’s new novel does not feature Lizzie Vogel, the engaging narrator of the trilogy that…
Sound made visible
What particularly excites Silvia Ferrara, the author of The Greatest Invention, is not language per se but writing – that…
A festering wound
Just as one is inclined to believe Carlyle’s point that the history of the world is but the biography of…
Staring back at Suzon
In this arresting debut novel we follow 26-year-old Eve as she tries to come to terms with the loss of…
The man who disappeared
In September 1890 a Frenchman called Louis Le Prince left his brother in Dijon and boarded a train to Paris,…
Dirty rotten tricks
In 2010, Mark Kennedy, a tattooed social justice warrior, was exposed as an undercover police officer. In this guise he…
Be your own bank
There was a time when you could read a book to keep up to date about a subject. Well, that’s…
Who’s story is it?
‘Whenever you see a character in a novel, let alone a biography or history book, reduced and neatened into three…
A nation in limbo
When the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy, in the person of that ‘lovely black boy’ Charles II, was announced in…
Guiding light
If you have ever thought that there cannot be anything new to say or to learn about the Queen, you…
Not just a pretty face
‘Who is AOC?’ the back cover of this book asks. ‘A wack job!’ says Donald Trump. ‘She needs to run…
Deathly silencing
Is there a woke case to be made for freedom of expression? Jacob Mchangama certainly seems to think so. This…
The Old Horse and the braying donkey
NoViolet Bulawayo’s first novel We Need New Names,shortlisted for the Booker in 2013, was a charming, tender gem, suffused with…
Sins of the mothers
Frida Liu, the 39-year-old mother of a toddler named Harriet, has a very bad day which will haunt her for…
Radiant yesterdays
Richard Cohen was once one of our foremost book editors as well as being an Olympic sabre champion. Since moving…
