Books
A great Liberal imperialist
This meaty but easily digested biography pivots around the events either side of that fateful evening of 4 August 1914…
The real jewel of the Nile
The decipherment of the Rosetta Stone led to bitter feuding – but there was mutual curiosity and collaboration too, says Elizabeth Frood
In the land of the blind
Carter William Page, born in 1971, is the former United States Navy officer with personal, business, scholarly and government connections…
A macabre legend
The problem with telling stories about Harvard is that Harvard, if it teaches anything these days, teaches distrust of stories.…
Reliving the golden moment
What caught my eye towards the end of Look Again was this conversation between David Bailey and the shoe designer…
Bright and beautiful
When he was a student, the celebrated American modernist master Robert Rauschenberg once told me that his ‘greatest teacher’ —…
In the same boat
‘We should be living in a brave country and on a brave planet that bravely distributes its occupants,’ thinks Rose…
Of human bondage
Wrestling with the history of the British Empire is the unfinished and unfinishable project of our history. Time’s Monster takes…
The greater glory of Roy
Stephen Bayley recalls his (mainly enjoyable) encounters with the flamboyant former museum director
Blame game
Ah, millennials. Golden children of the Digital Age or dysfunctional, over-educated slackers? Bit of both, says Anne Helen Petersen, although…
Jokes or gags?
Here are a couple of books that seek to tackle the difficult issue of comedy on the front line. One…
A study in realpolitik
Barack Obama was famous for his rhetoric, but his achievements show just what a steely political operator he was too, says Sam Leith
Man of mystic sorrow
John Steinbeck didn’t believe in God — but he didn’t believe much in humanity either. When push came to shove,…
The power of the pamphlet
Researching the seditious literature of earlier periods is seldom suspenseful, pulse-quickening work. For every thrill of archival discovery, there are…
Anything but a quiet life
Kikuko Tsumura is a multi-prizewinning Japanese author whose mischievously deceptive new novel takes us into what purports to be the…
A Scottish Paradise
As every Italian schoolchild knows, The Divine Comedy opens in a supernatural dark wood just before sunrise on Good Friday…
Animal magic
J.K. Rowling has written a book for children — and you know what? It’s a charmer. The Ickabod(Hachette, £20) was…
Four disparate thinkers
How do you write a group biography of people who never actually formed a group? Such is the challenge Wolfram…
Poet on the brink
‘A matter that hurts me is that I have made many hundreds of people laugh, in various cities, during the…
Quite smitten
As his biographer, I feel obliged to quote John Updike’s wise sayings — among them the first rule in his…
No one wants to know
If the homage wasn’t clear from the title, Tana French makes sure throughout The Searcher, her seventh novel and second…
Meaningful silences
Shirley Hazzard was in her late twenties when, in 1959, somewhat diffidently, she submitted her first short story to the…
Seriously overrated
Should the world be faster or slower? This is a question relevant to global economics, politics and culture. But not…
Bring me sunshine
In the dark days of a terrible winter, Elizabeth David began writing her first book, about Mediterranean food. The timing…
The making of a monster
Alfa Ndiaye, a Senegalese soldier fighting for France in the trenches of the Great War, is consumed by bloodlust, which…
