Books
The front line of hell
Christopher Hitchens once said that women just aren’t as funny as men and Caitlin Moran believed him. But that was…
Fish out of water
In the Pacific Northwest, Native Americans paint images of salmon on to stones. They say that if you rub those…
A novel sort of novel
Inside Story is called, on the front cover, which boasts a very charming photograph of the author and Christopher Hitchens,…
Cooking up a storm
You can’t say he didn’t warn us. In the final sentence of his previous book, Heat, a joyously gluttonous exploration…
In and out of the magic circle
Ten years ago, reviewing Alastair Campbell’s diaries for The Spectator, I concluded as follows: Who will be the chroniclers of…
Years in the wilderness
When reviewers say that some new book reminds them of some famous old book, it often ends up as a…
Worth doing badly
The greatest pain of lockdown has been, for me, the absence of am-dram. In one half of my life I’m…
Days of glory
Ian Thomson describes Ravenna’s golden age, when classical Rome, Byzantium and Christianity met
Nothing special, nothing new
I have a book of essays from 1986 by a group of British and American scholars called The Special Relationship.…
Into the labyrinth
Susanna Clarke is a member of the elite group of authors who don’t write enough. In 2004, the bestselling debut…
Magpie gifts
One day a baby bird falls from its nest into an oily scrapyard in Bermondsey, south London and seems unlikely…
What sort of family is this?
The line between obsession and addiction is as thin as rolling paper. Neither are simple and both stem from absence,…
One of the boys
This book made me almost weep with nostalgia, but heaven knows what today’s snowflakes will make of it. Fleet Street…
The pros and cons of consensus
The British romance with Germany has always been an on-off affair. At the turn of the century, Kaiser Bill enjoyed…
Return of the native
Conservationists are frequently criticised for focusing on glamorous species at the expense of others equally important but unluckily uglier —…
The skeleton is key
One hot summer’s morning, as a nine-year-old girl living on the rim of a Scottish loch in the hotel owned…
Beyond Bayreuth
Wagner gripped the communal mind for decades after his death. Philip Hensher examines his enduring influence
Under the jackboot
‘Free Tibet!’ used to be a rallying cry for Hollywood A-listers and rock stars. Richard Gere hung out with the…
Drowning in tears
Never was a monarch so undone by water as Henry I. A fruit of the sea killed him in 1135:…
Capital entertainment
The West End was always something a little apart. Some years ago, I used to go drinking with a man…
Searching for solace
Rose Tremain has followed her masterly The Gustav Sonata with an altogether different novel. In 1865, Clorinda Morrissey, a 38-year-old…
The magic of mushrooms
The biologist Merlin Sheldrake is an intriguing character. In a video promoting the publication of his book Entangled Life, which…
A rising star
It’s easy to forget that John F. Kennedy lived such a short life. At 43, he was the second youngest…
Our lopsided society
It is often said that the left does not understand human nature. Yet it is difficult to think of anything…
Primal longing
Sophie Macintosh’s Blue Ticket is not classic feminist dystopia. Yes, it is concerned with legislated fertility, a world where women’s…
