Books
Welsh wizardry
When Stravinsky visited David Jones in his cold Harrow bedsit, he came away saying, ‘I have been in the presence…
The best sort of magic realism
Michael Fishwick’s new novel tells the story of a young man called Robbie, who has been uprooted from his London…
A genial green guide to 2000 AD
I can recall exactly where I was 40 years ago when I didn’t buy the first issue — or ‘prog’…
Mach the Knife
The business of banking (from the Italian word banco, meaning ‘counter’) was essentially Italian in origin. The Medici bank, founded…
Prophesying doom
Boualem Sansal’s prophetic novel very clearly derives its lineage from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. A totalitarian surveillance state, a fundamentalist…
Holy heroes
The Reformation is such a huge, sprawling historical subject that it makes sense, in this the 500th anniversary of Martin…
The road to independence
Alone with her father’s dead body, Olive Piper says, ‘I don’t know anything, except what I feel, and how can…
An epic for our times
Trailing rave US reviews, fan letters from Yann Martel and Khaled Hosseini and a reputation as ‘Doctor Zhivago for the…
Charming old fox
Talleyrand was 76 when he took up the post of French ambassador in London in 1830. Linda Kelly deals only…
The man and the moment
The centenary of the Russian Revolution has arrived right on time, just as the liberal democratic world is getting a…
Bear essentials
In Yoko Tawada’s surreal and beguiling novel we meet three bears: mother, daughter and grandson. But there will be no…
Changing lanes
It’s fair to say Sonja Hansen’s life has stalled. Forties, tall and ungainly, veteran of failed relationships, she’s an uncomfortable…
Beautiful thoughts for all occasions
Kahlil Gibran was 40 years old, a short — he was just 5’3” — dapper man with doleful eyes and…
Reason and faith
Roy Hattersley would never have been born had it not been that his mother ran away with the parish priest…
Secrets of the secretaries
The minister’s private secretary wrote to another cabinet minister about the previous day’s cabinet meeting: They cannot agree about what…
The mysteries of colour
When Australia imposed generic packaging in its war on cigarettes, there was consumer research into the most deterrent colour. Pantone…
Forbidden love and the beautiful game
Nowadays, most of us living in the liberal West agree that there can never be anything morally wrong with love…
Speckled Footman and Maiden’s Blush
Last year, I attempted to pass through security in an American airport carrying a small black box, containing eight batteries…
Comfort the suffering
If a single book could help you to be kinder and more compassionate, could expand and deepen your understanding of…
Descent into hell
In my work as a reviewer, a small, steady proportion of all the books publishers send me concern the Holocaust.…
Father, son and holy ghost
No disrespect to any of the present incumbents, but Karl Miller (1931–2014) was a literary editor in an age when…
Nothing matters very much
Nothing will come of nothing, said Lear, because he wasn’t familiar with quantum physics. According to our current best theories,…
Carve their names with pride
‘Women,’ Captain Selwyn Jepson, SOE’s senior recruiting officer, once wrote, ‘have a far greater capacity for cool and lonely courage…
Night of the living dead
On 5 February 1862, the night Abraham Lincoln and his wife gave a lavish reception in the White House, with…
Light in the East
Christopher de Bellaigue, a journalist who has spent much of his working life in the Middle East, has grown tired…
