Books
The classic that conquered the world
Somewhere between his first and second drafts, Victor Hugo decided to change the title of his great novel from Les…
A whirlwind life
The dust cover features one of the best-known caricatures of Richard Wagner, his enormous head in this version opened like…
What the secretary saw
What the secretary sawSarah Churchwell Big Bosses: A Working Girl’s Memoir of the Jazz Age by Althea McDowell AltemusUniversity of…
The nature of genius
On 21 December 1945, Ezra Pound was confined to St Elizabeths hospital in Washington DC. He had broadcast for Rome…
Bedside manners
‘A tricky part of my job,’ the GP said, scrolling through the next patient’s notes, ‘is breaking good news.’ As…
Tricks of the trades
Oddly enough, one of the most historically influential pieces of British writing has turned out to be an essay that…
Swash and buckle aplenty
A feeble king and his scheming minister, a hunchback noble and the Daughters of Repentance, a botched assassination and a…
Everyday unhappiness
This is an extraordinarily compelling novel for one in which nothing really happens but everything changes. Sara Baume’s narrator is…
In praise of LSD
Ayelet Waldman is, surely, not the first writer to have scrolled through a list of ‘Books of the Year’ and…
Three’s a crowd
James Lasdun’s latest novel, billed as a psychological thriller, opens in Brooklyn in the summer of 2012. Charlie and his…
The game of life
In the introduction to his new book Steven Johnson starts out by describing the ninth-century Book of Ingenious Devices and…
Swash and buckle aplenty
A feeble king and his scheming minister, a hunchback noble and the Daughters of Repentance, a botched assassination and a…
A whirlwind life
The dust cover features one of the best-known caricatures of Richard Wagner, his enormous head in this version opened like…
In praise of LSD
Ayelet Waldman is, surely, not the first writer to have scrolled through a list of ‘Books of the Year’ and…
The nature of genius
On 21 December 1945, Ezra Pound was confined to St Elizabeths hospital in Washington DC. He had broadcast for Rome…
What the secretary saw
What the secretary sawSarah Churchwell Big Bosses: A Working Girl’s Memoir of the Jazz Age by Althea McDowell AltemusUniversity of…
Tricks of the trades
Oddly enough, one of the most historically influential pieces of British writing has turned out to be an essay that…
The classic that conquered the world
Somewhere between his first and second drafts, Victor Hugo decided to change the title of his great novel from Les…
Everyday unhappiness
This is an extraordinarily compelling novel for one in which nothing really happens but everything changes. Sara Baume’s narrator is…
Bedside manners
‘A tricky part of my job,’ the GP said, scrolling through the next patient’s notes, ‘is breaking good news.’ As…
Three’s a crowd
James Lasdun’s latest novel, billed as a psychological thriller, opens in Brooklyn in the summer of 2012. Charlie and his…
The game of life
In the introduction to his new book Steven Johnson starts out by describing the ninth-century Book of Ingenious Devices and…
Inbuilt obsolescence
Once upon a time, Australian politics was known for its stability. Long periods of one party or another in office,…
Intimations of mortality
In Deaths of the Poets two living examples of the species, Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts, retail the closing…
Flights of fancy
Michael Chabon’s back. He’d never gone away, of course — more than a dozen books in all — but it’s…
