Books
A singular horror
Seventy years after the Nazi Holocaust, against the background of a rich and varied literature, Laurence Rees has achieved the…
Before the bling
If you read the first volume of John Romer’s A History of Egypt, which traces events along the Nile from…
A singular horror
Seventy years after the Nazi Holocaust, against the background of a rich and varied literature, Laurence Rees has achieved the…
Telling on mother
Like many debut novels, The Nix, by the American author Nathan Hill, is about somebody writing their first book. Samuel…
An infinite spirit
Can American publishers be dissuaded from foisting absurd, bombastic subtitles on their books as if readers are all Trumpers avid…
Reading between the lines
Writing to her sister Cassandra about Pride and Prejudice in January 1813, Jane Austen declared, in a parody of Walter…
Lord of the Arctic
According to the author of this beautifully illustrated, hugely engaging book, if we were ever to choose a fellow mammal…
Do you know who I am?
Anyone looking for a groundbreaking ethnography of the global political elite —the elusive social grouping that western electorates are currently…
The empathy trap
Being against empathy sounds like being against flowers or sparrows. Surely empathy is a good thing? Isn’t one of the…
Boy wonder
Back in 1978, a young and already successful Steven Spielberg told a bunch of would-be moviemakers at the American Film…
A losing streak
In backgammon, a blot is a single checker, sitting alone and unprotected. This is a sly title for this sly…
A scandalous scramble
Empires in the Sun might conjure up romantic visions for some, but this book’s essence is distilled in its subtitle,…
Dangerous liaisons
In a Kashmiri apple orchard, a young fugitive from the Indian army’s cruel oppressions spots a snake that has ‘mistaken…
The Band’s Barnacle Man
The recent spate of rock memoirs has proved one of the less rewarding sub- genres in the post-digital Gutenberg galaxy.…
Bridges and troubled waters
During David Cameron’s years as prime minister, an unobtrusive figure could be seen slipping out of the back entrance to…
Thoughts on the human condition
This past autumn has felt more uncomfortable than usual to be a woman looking at men looking at women. From…
Wild, wild women
Who is the least likely candidate for an animated princess movie? That’s the question former DreamWorks animator Jason Porath asked…
Embarrassing Victorian bodies
The fetishisation of the Victorians shows no sign of abating. Over the past 16 years, since the centenary of the…
A matter of life and death
This month, 30 years ago, I wrote a draft of what was to become soon afterwards the first comprehensive human…
A cold case from the Cold War
It is a chastening thought that Boris Johnson’s responsibilities now include MI6. Alan Judd’s latest novel is particularly interesting about…
An apologia for adultery
What to make of this unexpectedly startling novel? Though you may be lured into a false sense of familiarity by…
Piety and wit
During the second world war, while one brother was editing Punch as a national institution (‘Working with him was a…
The legacy of Vietnam
At first glance, Robert Olen Butler’s Perfume River seems like an application for a National Book Award. Its protagonist, Robert,…
A hellish paradise
‘Short of writing a thesis in many volumes,’ Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote in his preface to The Traveller’s Tree, ‘only…
The trapper and the trapped
The Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai has only lately become known to Anglophone audiences, through the masterly translations of George Szirtes…
