Books
The best way to see India — by train
‘I went to a restaurant the other day called Taste of the Raj. The waiter hit me with a stick…
Spot the classical music
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The history of the Bank of England would make a marvellous musical
Hamilton, created by the remarkable Lin-Manuel Miranda, has brought the financial musical to the London stage: a serious biography of…
The hopes and fears of Bethlehem
Before a certain baby was born there, Bethlehem was famous for its sweet water. Shepherd boys like the young David,…
What makes a semi-police state happy?
This charming collection of individual photographic portraits of Bhutanese citizens intentionally highlights the two central features of the kingdom today:…
Anthologies to bring comfort and joy
John Julius Norwich loves Christmas dearly. ‘I just wish it didn’t come round about every three months,’ he says. I…
Did a vodka ban precipitate the Russian Revolution?
It’s one of the more mysterious features of human history that people of every era and in almost every place…
True, dogged likenesses
There are currently 151,000,000 photos on Instagram tagged #Dog which is 14,000,000 more than those tagged #Cat. The enormous number…
Royalist recipes for surviving the civil war
Halfway through Lady Fanshawe’s Receipt Book Lucy Moore takes a moment to regret the vast tracts of the past that…
Why is America so inhibited about sex toys?
It’s hard not to love a book that starts with its author fearing a police sting while flogging sex toys…
Bryant’s tyrants: Chris Bryant bashes the British aristocracy
I rashly discarded this book’s dustjacket when I received it, and thus saw only the unlettered cover, a faded photograph…
The vibrant tradition of English folk song
After hundreds of densely packed pages on folk song in England — a subject for which I share Steve Roud’s…
A master of Norwegian wood
Ole Thorstensen has been a carpenter for 25 years. A master craftsman, in fact. He is busy working on a…
Writers’ letters: Anthony Trollope
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Mission statement: the importance of a fine British embassy
At first blush this looks like one of those run-of-the-mill coffee-table books published just for the Christmas market — expensively…
From Adonis to Prometheus: the beautiful men of myth
Stephen Fry has had a go at the Greek myths, in a competitively priced hardback, just in time for Christmas.…
What on earth was The Prisoner all about?
Now, if someone were to spray stun gas through the keyhole of my front door, and I were to collapse…
Christmas quiz – The answers
Weird world 1. Cannabis 2. Che Guevara 3. Tesco 4. Asda 5. Beauty and the Beast 6. Georgia 7. France…
Spot the Classical Music – The answers
1. The Planets (Holst) 2. The Nutcracker Suite (Tchaikovsky) 3. Fingal’s Cave (Mendelssohn) 4. Enigma Variations (Elgar) 5. Choral Symphony…
The joy of Japanese puzzles – The answers
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Books of 2017 – reviewed
When we look back at 2017 we will probably remember it as a year of minor issues that turned into…
How cool is your fridge?
Mrs Thatcher once explained that she adored cleaning the fridge because, in a complicated life, it was one of the…
Christmas quiz books galore
There can be few challenges more daunting for the assiduous reviewer than a pile of Christmas ‘gift’ books sitting on…
The short, reckless life of Andrea Dunbar
In her debut novel, Adelle Stripe recounts the brief, defiant life of the playwright Andrea Dunbar. Dunbar was raised on…
Writers’ Letters: Virginia Woolf
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