Books
Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers, by Ryan O’Neill reviewed
Almost 120 years ago, the Australian writer Henry Lawson offered some counsel to those who came after him, writing that…
Was the Indian Rope Trick a myth?
The Paul Daniels Magic Show, on a Saturday afternoon in the early 1980s, was a straightforward enough proposition. A wand,…
Have we reached the limits of computing power — and might that be a good thing?
Arguably, the statue in Trafalgar Square should not be of Nelson but of Henry Maudslay. He had started out as…
Even in supposedly liberal circles, homophobia and racism are still quite acceptable in France
After an absence of 30 years, Didier Eribon, professor of sociology at the University of Amiens, returned to the seedy…
Was there ever anything romantic about the Romany life?
Damian Le Bas is of Gypsy stock (he insists on the upper case throughout his book). His beloved great-grandmother told…
Stormy weather: Florida, by Lauren Groff, reviewed
Over the past decade Lauren Groff has written three novels; she now returns to the short story form in this,…
The Tibetan Passion Book puts the Kama Sutra in the shade
The Tibetan artist and poet Gendun Chopel was born in 1903. He was identified as an incarnate lama, and ordained…
Does one have to dissect birds to write the biography of an ornithologist?
At first glance, the 17th-century natural historian Francis Willughby is an ideal subject for a biography. He lived in interesting…
The B-side of The English Patient? Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje, reviewed
In 1945, on a Putney side street, in a city full of darkness and half in rubble from the Blitz,…
Donald Trump: a Shakespearean tyrant to a T
‘What country, friends, is this?’ asks Viola at the start of Twelfth Night. She is shipwrecked and heartbroken; she does…
The Empty Quarter is a great refuge for lonely hearts
Here’s a treat for desert lovers. William Atkins, author of the widely admired book The Moor, has wisely exchanged the…
‘Steer clear of that cave boy, James Dean, and grease ball, Elvis Presley’
Lucky bastard. Such are the words that come constantly to mind while you’re reading Clancy Sigal’s two volumes of posthumously…
The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner reviewed
Asked how he achieves the distinctive realism for which his novels and screenplays are famous, Richard Price, that sharp chronicler…
You didn’t have to be mad to work for Tommy Nutter — but it helped
The tailor’s art is a triumph of mind over schmatte. Not just in the physical cutting and stitching, but in…
Never Anyone But You, by Rupert Thomson reviewed
In a 2013 interview with a Canadian newspaper, Rupert Thomson acknowledged the strange place he occupies in the literary world.…
The Female Persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer reviewed
It’s because it’s the land of the loner that the United States is so loved or loathed. Yet to me…
Sher genius: Antony Sher’s account of playing King Lear
Why are rehearsal diaries so compelling? One approaches them with cynicism and then ends up reading with racing heart through…
A review of debut novels — from Lisa Halliday, Margaret Wilkersen Sexton, Matthew Klam and Anbara Salam
Publication of a debut novel is an experience comparable with the birth of a first child. Literary gestation is normally…
I hate fishing — but was hooked by the story of the Yukon’s salmon
‘Help!’ I thought, when I read the Author’s Note. ‘It’s about salmon, and I hate fishing.’ But by the first…
How I exposed the truth about My Lai
The humble title of Seymour Hersh’s memoir is somewhat at odds with the tone of the book. He says the…
Speeding along the highway in America’s coolest cars
In 1973, four years before he disappeared down the Star Wars rabbit hole, George Lucas directed the film American Graffiti,…
Are European cities really so much better than our own?
Early on in his introduction of nearly 60 pages, Owen Hatherley writes: ‘I find the Britain promised by Brexiters quite…
Motherhood, by Sheila Heti reviewed
‘I don’t think this was something I ever felt’, Sheila Heti writes in Motherhood — ‘that my body, my life,…
The lovely curlew is wading into extinction
Mary Colwell, a producer at the BBC natural history unit, is on a mission: to save the British curlew from…
Missing, by Alison Moore reviewed
Whereas in an unabashed thriller, in the TV series The Missing, for example, the object of the exercise is well…
