Books
Nazi on the run
In 1926, while putting in place the repressive laws and decrees that would define his dictatorship, Mussolini appointed a new…
Another man with a mission
How refreshing in a time of general sensitivity to find a book intended to infuriate and debunk. Welcome to the…
Birds of a feather
Philip Hensher describes how Paris became a magnet for literary-minded lesbians in the early 20th century – where they soon caused quite a stir
Smith not Mill
For a long time in this country, conservatism was the political creed that dare not speak its name. The term…
A cascade of wishful thinking
Ah well. It was a nice try. A few years ago I wrote a book called The Great Acceleration, arguing…
Keeping faith
Imagine being on indefinite lockdown, imprisoned in a dark, underground, 6’ x 12’ cell, freezing in winter, boiling in summer…
Bloodbath in the Pacific
The US operation of 1945 to take the island of Okinawa was the largest battle of the Pacific during the…
Just the beginning
In Japan, people thought the world would end in 1052. In the decades leading up to judgment day, Kyoto was…
East meets west
When musicians from outside the Anglo-American pop mainstream achieve success in the West, there are conflicting reactions. Seun Kuti, the…
The enemy within
It’s easy to dismiss the fascistic ideologues who populate Graham Macklin’s book as reactionary cranks of no significance. It’s also…
Catch me if you can
NVK, which is the IATA (International Air Transport Association) code for Narvik’s old airport, is in this instance Naemi Vieno…
Dealing in death
John Troyer, the director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, has moves. You can…
A foul-weather family
Excess, incest and marital misery were in the blood. Frances Wilson uncovers several generations of infamous Byrons
The ‘other’ other half
Conservative estimates place the number of those in America with more than one spouse as up to 100,000, but the…
The forsaken mermaid
Lamorna Ash came to the fishing port of Newlyn in south-west Cornwall to write a memoir. This is not unusual.…
All about Eve
On a winter’s night an artist of moderately exalted reputation and in lateish middle age journeys across London, away from…
Was it ever a symbol of unity?
From the kitchen of her apartment on the Quai de la Tournelle in Paris, the journalist and broadcaster Agnès Poirier…
A stranger to herself
How can you recover the teenage girl you were? Not just recall the memories and recount the events — this…
Grief fills the room up
Maggie O’Farrell is much possessed by death. Her first novel, After You’d Gone (2000), chronicled the inner life of a…
A family in a billion
Don Galvin and Mimi Blayney married in December 1944. It was a shotgun wedding. They had been high school sweethearts.…
An unexamined life
Micah Mortimer, the strikingly unproactive protagonist of Anne Tyler’s 23rd novel, is a man of such unswerving routine that his…
A true revolutionary
Wordsworth’s reputation has been too long in decline, says Tom Williams. In the space of a decade he transformed English poetry, and his earlier works remain astonishing
Flying too close to the sun
The beautiful Greek island of Hydra became home to a bohemian community of expats in the 1960s, including the Canadian…
The shape of things to come
To begin not at the beginning but at the end of the beginning. Or rather, to begin at another beginning,…
Fame is a fickle food
Good writing about celebrity is scant. It has few poets, because it takes depth to go truly shallow (I’d nominate…
