Books
The invisible man behind Hollywood’s greatest films
What do the following filmmakers have in common: Victor Fleming, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch,…
Murder in the basement: The Language of Birds, by Jill Dawson, reviewed
Jill Dawson has a taste for murder. One of her earlier novels, the Orange shortlisted Fred and Edie, fictionalised the…
The Struggle and The Scream: is Karl Ove Knausgaard Munch’s doppelgänger?
Norway doesn’t have a world-class philosopher (Kierkegaard was Danish). Karl Ove Knausgaard declared at the end of his previous book…
Was there no end to John Buchan’s talents?
John Buchan was a novelist, historian, poet, biographer and journalist (assistant editor of The Spectator indeed); a barrister and publisher;…
Time for a Tippett revival
Running the entire course of the 20th century, Michael Tippett’s life (1905–1998) was devoted to innovation. He was an English…
Toy boy: Machines Like Me, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
What kind of loyalty do we owe a robot we’ve paid for — one who exhibits a convincingly human kind…
How climate change led to capitalism
At a dinner recently I was told the story of a Canadian billionaire (now defined in banking circles as someone…
I could have stopped Harold Shipman’s killing spree and saved 175 lives
Scientists, it turns out, are really bad at statistics. Numerous studies show that a startling proportion of academics consistently misunderstand…
A stubborn Conservative PM attempting to negotiate with Germany? Not Theresa May but Neville Chamberlain
When lists are compiled of our best and worst prime ministers (before the present incumbent), the two main protagonists of…
Rebel girls of the 13th century
Women who can — however tenuously — be described as ‘rebel girls’ are big in publishing now. Goodnight Stories for…
Jewish food to relish and cherish
In matters of culture and ethnicity, I take my lead from my old friend and guide Sir Jonathan Miller. Like…
The dirty business of early printed books
Say what you like about the efficiency of the Kindle, one day we’re going to wake up and miss the…
A tease for #MeToo
Titania McGrath is the alter ego of the schoolteacher Andrew Doyle. A perpetually enraged ‘activist, healer and radical intersectional poet’,…
Financial eunuch
Teenagers are normally embarrassed by their mothers. Germaine Greer was particularly so. Elizabeth Kleinhenz in her new biography writes: ‘Germaine…
It was pretty good for me: Joan Bakewell on the Sixties
For me this book evokes a Gigi duet moment: ‘You wore a gown of gold.’ ‘I was all in blue.’…
Greece is not just for Greeks — it belongs to the world
It often proves difficult to talk about modern Greece. Not just because of the relentless stream of news coming at…
The Bears v. the Rabbits: The Feral Detective, by Jonathan Lethem, reviewed
Jonathan Lethem’s new book is billed as ‘his first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn’, which won America’s national book critics…
Barefoot in the park: Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri, reviewed
In 1923, an earthquake with a magnitude of 9 struck Tokyo and Yokohama. A huge area of Tokyo burned. But,…
Can anyone get away with murder anymore?
When the 24-year-old Angela Gallop started working at the Home Office forensic science service, her boss lost no time in…
The vast human cost of the Panama Canal keeps unfolding
There is nothing new about Latin America’s fractious relationship with her northern neighbour. In 1900 the Uruguayan writer José Enrique…
‘Where every vice was permissible’: Graham Greene’s Cuba
Cuba meant a lot to Graham Greene. Behind his writing desk in his flat in Antibes he had a painting…
Bloodbath at Baisakhi: the centenary of the Amritsar massacre
On 10 April 1919, the peppery governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, ordered the immediate arrest of two leaders…
Into oblivion
Moribund for about nine years now, Clive James has released his newest transcription of the Grim Reaper’s call. You might…
How much of the Bible are Christians expected to believe?
In this careful study of the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity, John Barton, former Oriel and Laing professor of…
While Dutch schools ban birthday cakes, the British pine for the next Bake Off
The Way We Eat Now begins with a single bunch of grapes. The bunch is nothing special to the modern…
