Books
The selfish shrink: life with Jacques Lacan
Peyrot, the chef at Le Vivarois in Paris, had a fascinating theory of how one of his regulars, the otherwise…
Down’s syndrome and dystopia in Jesse Bull’s Census
Census is a curious, clever novel. It depicts a dystopia with a father and his Down’s syndrome son journeying from…
The enduring enigma of Nefertiti
Often dubbed the Mona Lisa of the ancient world, the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti is as immediately recognisable…
How Christianity saw off its rivals and became the universal church
In the reign of Constantine, whose conversion to Christianity in AD 310 set the entire Roman world on a course…
Think of five things you use daily that weren’t made in a factory
Industrial factories huddle at the very edge of our world view. Most of us have never visited one, but we…
Cockney comfort food: eel, pie and mash to the sound of Bow bells
Cockney feet mark the beat of history, sang Noël Coward, as if he had ever been east of Holborn. Yet…
First wife, enduring love: the passionate affair of John Osborne and Pamela Lane
Look Back in Anger, John Osborne’s 1956 play, was a fertile cultural seedbed: out of it sprouted the Angry Young…
Who knew that Arabic has more than 30 words for wine?
You know you’re in good hands when the dedication reads: ‘To the writers, drinkers and freethinkers of the Arab and…
False confessions to murder in 1970s Iceland
Everyone in Iceland has heard of Gudmunder and Geirfinnur. They were two (unrelated) men who disappeared in 1974, albeit ten…
I’m in danger of becoming a flat-mind bore
Reading The Mind is Flat is like watching The Truman Show and realising, while you’re watching it, that you are…
Love and loneliness prevail in the latest short stories
Carmen Maria Machado’s debut collection Her Body & Other Parties (Serpent’s Tail, £12.99) takes a confident straddle across speculative fiction,…
Simplicius Simplicissimus and the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War
On 23 May 1618, Bohemian Protestants pushed two Catholic governors and their secretary through the windows of Prague Castle, in…
Wilder still and wilder
Hello! Hello! Hello! What have we here? What we have is the new Plant – the sixth – from Michael…
The disappearing acts of Joseph Gray, master of military camouflage
On a night in Paris in 1914, Gertrude Stein was walking with Picasso when the first camouflaged trucks passed by.…
A Book of Chocolate Saints: an Indian novel like no other
The Indian poet Jeet Thayil’s first novel, Narcopolis, charted a two-decade-long descent into the underworlds of Mumbai and addiction. One…
Paris at its most liberated: the turbulent 1940s
We all have our favourite period of Parisian history, be it the Revolution, the Belle Époque or the swinging 1960s…
Why are there no pubs called after Lord North?
If you associate Lord Salisbury more with a pub than with politics, here is Andrew Gimson to the rescue, with…
The Friendly Ones: a novel about prejudice of all kinds:
Readers should skim past the blurb of The Friendly Ones. The novel is about prejudice, of many different kinds; but…
For some soldiers, the VC was easier to win than to wear
‘The Victoria Cross,’ gushed a mid-19th-century contributor to the Art Journal, ‘is thoroughly English in every particular. Given alike to…
From a Low and Quiet Sea: making art from a perilous journey
Donal Ryan is one of the most notable Irish writers to emerge this decade. So far he has produced five…
From persecutor to preacher: the journey of St Paul
Saint Paul is unique among those who have changed the course of history — responsible not just for one but…
Corpses, clues and Kiwis in Ngaio Marsh’s posthumous novel
Publishing loves a brand. Few authors of fiction create characters who reach this semi-divine status, but when they do, even…
If you keep a pet raven, look out for your jewellery and car keys
With bird books the more personal the better. Joe Shute was once a crime correspondent and is today a Telegraph…
Drowning in superstition: a magnificent thriller of medieval England
Samantha Harvey is much rated by critics and those readers who have discovered her books, but deserving of a far…
Are the French right to be obsessed with their Gaulish ancestry?
Katrina Gulliver 31 March 2018 9:00 am
This book reminded me of Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland — but where Andersen thinks only Americans have lost their minds, David…