More from Books

Notes on the natural world: an exquisite collection from Kathleen Jamie

13 July 2024 9:00 am

In short essays and poems, the Scottish makar explores our connections with nature, always mindful of the insignificance of human time compared to the deep time of stones

Why state bureaucracy is crucial to our happiness

13 July 2024 9:00 am

With politicians increasingly sabotaging the machinery of government worldwide, our only protection lies in the civil service, judiciary, police and security services

Could anyone be trusted in Tudor and Stuart England?

13 July 2024 9:00 am

An investigation of the codes, disguises and invisible inks used by plotters and spymasters captures the paranoia of an age when secret messages could be hidden anywhere

The downside to being rich: Long Island Compromise, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, reviewed

13 July 2024 9:00 am

A rollicking family saga set on Long Island revolves around the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman and the effects of it on his wife and children

At last, a private education that wasn’t unmitigated misery

13 July 2024 9:00 am

Robyn Hitchcock describes how his musical tastes were formed listening, aged 14, to Dylan, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix on the school gramophone at Winchester

A haunting apparition: Bonehead, by Mo Hayder, reviewed

13 July 2024 9:00 am

A young policewoman returns to her native Gloucestershire, hoping to solve a mystery connected to a terrible past accident there

Richard Flanagan rails against wrongs ‘too vast to have a name’

13 July 2024 9:00 am

‘Why do we do what we do to each other?’ he asks, citing among many atrocities the dropping of the atom bomb and the genocide of aboriginal Tasmanians

The rewards of being the ‘asylum capital of the world’

13 July 2024 9:00 am

Matthew Lockwood traces Britain’s long history as a haven for refugees and argues that the nation has benefitted greatly over the centuries as a result

The clue to Shakespeare’s sexuality lies in the sonnets

6 July 2024 9:00 am

They are quite unlike any other sonnet sequence of the time and seem to be a kind of personal statement – written by a man with undeniable feelings for another man

Echoes of Tom Brown’s School Days: Rabbits, by Hugo Rifkind, reviewed

6 July 2024 9:00 am

When 16-year-old Tommo moves to an elite, brutish boarding school, he longs to fit in and even manages to join the inner circle. But can he ever really become ‘one of them’?

The important business of idle loafing

6 July 2024 9:00 am

Alain Corbin describes how rest, once seen as a prelude to eternal life, began to assume a therapeutic quality in the 19th century, as a guard against burnout and a cure for TB

Nothing rivals a traditional Chinese banquet for opulence

6 July 2024 9:00 am

Imperial feasts in the 18th century would last several days – and it was considered the height of bad manners not to gorge on the variety of meat and fish on offer

Imprisoned for years on Putin’s whim

6 July 2024 9:00 am

Vladimir Pereverzin’s ‘crime’ was to have worked for a company owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky – and refusing to give false evidence resulted in an 11-year sentence in the camps

Why would anyone choose to live in Puerto Rico?

6 July 2024 9:00 am

US bailouts keep this poor relation afloat through bankruptcies, hurricanes and political bust-ups without even trying to boost its demographics or reverse its economic decline

The Karakachan sheepdog is a match for any bear – but not for modern society

6 July 2024 9:00 am

The fearless breed, descended from the Molossus of Epirus described by Aristotle, may soon disappear from Central Europe, along with the flocks it guards

The assassination of Georgi Markov bore all the hallmarks of a Russian wet job

6 July 2024 9:00 am

The Bulgarian dissident sailed too close to the wind with his revelations about Tudor Zhivkov in 1978, provoking the dictator to enlist Russian help in eliminating him

A tale of impossible love: The End of Drum Time, by Hanna Pylväinen, reviewed

6 July 2024 9:00 am

A 19th-century missionary’s daughter falls for a Sami herdsman and flees with him to the tundra – only to find that, as an incomer, she will always be cold-shouldered

Portrait of an artistic provocateur: Blue Ruin, by Hari Kunzru, reviewed

6 July 2024 9:00 am

A once fashionable YBA now scraping a living in America meets old friends by chance, prompting a deep dive into memory

Unless the Treasury is tamed, there’s no solution to Britain’s problems

29 June 2024 9:00 am

Two left-wing political analysts seek to bury the whole economic approach taken by the Conservatives since 2010 – or perhaps even 1979

A brief glimpse of secretive Myanmar

29 June 2024 9:00 am

Taking advantage of a relatively open period after the 2015 election, Claire Hammond explored the country’s interior through its complex, unofficial railway network

A sea of troubles: The Coast Road, by Alan Murrin, reviewed

29 June 2024 9:00 am

The sudden return of the liberated Colette Crowley to the Donegal fishing village of Ardglas stirs fear and resentment in the closed community

Pure Puccini: an opera lover’s melodramatic family history

29 June 2024 9:00 am

Flamboyant theatrics were part of Michael Volpe’s life as CEO of Opera Holland Park. But those of his feuding Italian relatives rival anything seen on stage

Afrikaner angst: Cato Pedder goes in search of her ancestors

29 June 2024 9:00 am

As a descendant of Jan Smuts, Pedder is Afrikaner aristocracy. But she finds the legacy increasingly problematic while researching the lives of her female forebears

Runaway lovers: The Heart in Winter, by Kevin Barry, reviewed

29 June 2024 9:00 am

In 19th-century Butte, Montana, a reluctant new bride falls in love with the young man sent to photograph her – leading to violent retribution for the doomed couple

The atmosphere of a historic country house cannot be bought

29 June 2024 9:00 am

Paintings, books and treasures collected by the same family over centuries give a historical depth that no modern plutocrat can recreate