Books
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…
The sacred chickens that ruled the roost in ancient Rome
Even the most cursory glance at the classical period reveals the central place that birds played in the religious and…
The cruel end of Emmanuel Barthélemy –as a waxwork in the Chamber of Horrors
This is a biography that begins with a bang, swiftly followed by puddles of blood, shrieks of ‘Murder!’ and a…
Bibi Netanyahu: Israel’s unloved, unlovable necessity
Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most unloved and unlovable figures in Israeli politics, a solid finish in a competitive…
My brilliant career hits the drystone wall
We all tell stories about ourselves, every one of us. ‘I’m a useless cook.’ ‘Spiders don’t scare me.’ Not all…
1983: the year the world nearly ended
In 1983, Soviet spies skulked in our midnight streets to check the lights were out. The Kremlin, convinced the West…
The sound of silence that echoes round Paul Simon
Someone has gone to a lot of trouble choosing the jacket cover of Robert Hilburn’s authorised biography of Paul Simon…
Carbon – the stuff of life we’re shamefully ignorant about
‘I didn’t realise we were carbon,’ said a friend to whom I mentioned this book. She was the first of…
America’s wittiest women fight to be taken seriously
From Aphra Behn to Virginia Woolf, women who make a living by their pens have frequently felt the need to…
Is it acceptable to spin an entertaining fantasy from real-life crime?
How can you defend a man you hate? John Fairfax, in his Blind Defence (Little Brown, £16.99), explores this dilemma.…
The wilder shores of excess in William Trevor’s fiction
A very prolific and long-standing writer of short stories reveals himself. William Trevor, who died in 2016, owned up to…
