Books
Take up and read Augustine’s Confessions
I usually throw away dust jackets but Robin Lane Fox chose his for a reason. He originally encountered Augustine of…
Is the Slender-billed curlew already extinct?
This unusual book is beautifully written, produced and illustrated, but its subject — the small Slender-billed curlew — is strangely…
Misprint
Stealth is its policy. It lies in wait. It is no respecter of age. It turns up late Or far…
Misprint
Stealth is its policy. It lies in wait. It is no respecter of age. It turns up late Or far…
Misprint
Stealth is its policy. It lies in wait. It is no respecter of age. It turns up late Or far…
Hide and seek with T.S. Eliot
Not only is this the definitive edition of T.S. Eliot’s poems, it is also the best biography of the poet we have, says Daniel Swift
Brian Hodgson finds his vocation in Kathmandu
It started as a ‘shoke’ — the Anglo-Indian slang word for ‘hobby’. Bored and lonely in Kathmandu, the young Assistant…
Paul Theroux returns home — to guns and evangelism
During the first ten pages of this long work Paul Theroux, on a journey through the American South, meets two…
Christmas-themed books — for children and adults
There’s a moment in a child’s life where Christmas begins to lose its magic. Once lost it cannot be regained,…
Nessie’s enduring attraction
It wasn’t until I drove past Loch Ness a couple of years ago that I realised just how enormous it…
Clothes to die for
People tend to use the term ‘fashion victim’ somewhat damningly — and maybe jealously — to describe someone obsessed by…
Oliver Sacks bids farewell in style
‘I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not…
All Change
Based on a handwritten notebook of recipes from Dorothy Eliza Barnes, my grandmother, a shepherd’s wife, who had worked as…
A journey through magic across three millennia
With the briefest of introductions to each chapter, it is up to the reader to decide how they want to…
Homage to awesome Welles on his centenary
One day in May 1948 in the Frascati hills southeast of Rome, Orson Welles took his new secretary, Rita Ribolla,…
Chrissie Hynde writes like an angel on angel dust
‘The day I found out that Suzi Quatro wasn’t a dyke was the worst day of my life!’ a teenage…
A Horrible History of English Hymns
Given that for much of English history the country’s main musical tradition was that connected with the church, it is…
The Star of Bethlehem finds a new dedicated follower
It’s hard to imagine Christmas without stars. They perch at the top of fir trees, glitter from greeting cards and…
Scents and sensibility
Choosing to smell of something other than ourselves, and then perhaps in time coming to view that fragrance as ‘our’…
From Adrian Gill to A.A. Gill — with love and thanks
Often, Christmas is a time for moaning after the night before, when the seasonal drinking is remembered (if remembered at…
Brian Sewell votes the Silver Ghost the best car in the world
One of the great joys of the late Brian Sewell’s style of writing was his almost child-like bluntness. He had…
December
The ferns around the badgers’ sett are dying down, and fine webs fret the brambles. By late afternoon the moon…
Spot the line of poetry
Test your knowledge
The smoking diary of Gregor Hens
The link between smoking and self-expression is long-established. The only thing worse than not being able to smoke, says Will…
Larkin’s misty parks and moors — in all their lacerating beauty
When Philip Larkin went up to St John’s College, Oxford, in the early 1940s, he found himself in a world…
