Books

An elegy for Concorde, the most beautiful airliner of all time

14 November 2015 9:00 am

The Concorde experience, a fleeting indulgence in luxurious grandiosity, began each day with circumvention of the hugger-mugger of the hoi…

The Tower of Babel by Lucas van Valckenborch, 1591

The buildings we treasure most are often the ones we’ve never seen

14 November 2015 9:00 am

Here are two books which have almost nothing in common: form, function, source material, methodology, all utterly different. The surprise…

Guillemot eggs, Iceland. From The Nordic Cookbook by Magnus Nilsson (Phaidon)

From toad in the hole to seal soup: the best new cookbooks

14 November 2015 9:00 am

Timing is everything, and few cookbooks come at an apter moment than Mamushka (Mitchell Beazley, £25) by the excellently named…

Was Éamon de Valera Ireland’s Franco?

14 November 2015 9:00 am

A highlight of this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival was the Rough Magic Theatre Company’s production of The Train, a musical…

Rex Whistler: ‘a desolate sense of loneliness amidst so much fun’

14 November 2015 9:00 am

When Hugh and Mirabel Cecil’s book In Search of Rex Whistler was published in 2012, the late Brian Sewell reviewed…

Cycling is about much more than winning — and David Millar’s The Racer is quite a ride

14 November 2015 9:00 am

In 2004, French police officers searching the home of the professional cyclist David Millar found some syringes and empty phials…

The Butcher of Bosnia holes up in an Irish backwater

14 November 2015 9:00 am

The cover of Edna O’Brien’s 17th novel sports a handsome quote from Philip Roth: ‘The great Edna O’Brien has written…

Howard Marks: the dreary life of a drugs dealer

Julie Burchill vs celebrity memoirs

14 November 2015 9:00 am

I learned from this little lot that if one has read The Diary of a Nobody, then one can derive…

Alexander Calder in his Roxbury studio, 1941

Books and arts opener

14 November 2015 9:00 am

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

Clockwise from top left: Rudyard Kipling, Hannah More, M.R. James, Elizabeth Bowen, Arthur Conan Doyle and Candia McWilliam

The best British short stories — from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith

7 November 2015 9:00 am

In this handsome two-volume anthology, Philip Hensher convincingly establishes himself as a world authority on the short story, says Ian Sansom

‘Nocturne in Grey and Gold’ by James McNeill Whistler, 1874

London fog: from the Big Smoke to the Big Choke

7 November 2015 9:00 am

‘A foggy day in London town,’ croons Fred Astaire in the 1937 musical comedy A Damsel in Distress, puffing nonchalantly…

Where would America be without Gloria Steinem?, asks Carmen Callil

7 November 2015 9:00 am

This is a book written by a most admirable woman, which is nevertheless — with some rare and excellent exceptions…

Umberto Eco really tries our patience

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Colonna, the protagonist of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, is the first to admit he is a loser. A middle-aged literary…

Ferdinand Porsche, the inventor of the Doodlebug and the Panzer tank, was treated with rare deference by Hitler, bordering on idolatry

Ferninand Porsche: from the Beetle to the Panzer tank

7 November 2015 9:00 am

The aggressive character of the famous German sports car, in a sort of sympathetic magic, often transfers itself to owner-drivers.…

When escape to the sun — or even to Devon — goes horribly wrong

7 November 2015 9:00 am

A character in Sophie Hannah’s A Game for All the Family (Hodder, £14.99, pp. 432) presents a theory: ‘Mysteries are…

Warning: this book only contains strong language

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Dan Marshall, the author of this memoir, loves to swear. ‘It’s very difficult for me to write a sentence without…

Even the appearance of a lone wolf at Salem was enough to trigger accusations of witchcraft

Has Salem bewitched Stacy Schiff?

7 November 2015 9:00 am

There have been many books devoted to the terrible events that took place in the small rural community of Salem…

An early photograph of Sinatra, the flute-thin crooner.From Charles Pignone’s Sinatra 100 (Thames & Hudson)

Frank Sinatra never went away — but did he ever grow up?

7 November 2015 9:00 am

‘He never went away. All those other things that we thought were here to stay, they did go away. But…

To the ends of the earth — but not back

7 November 2015 9:00 am

What’s in a name? The identity of the author offers a clue to one of the themes of this intriguing…

Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, from the east, painted by the Flemish artist Jan Siberechts in 1695. In the foreground the D-shaped bowling green sits on a raised terrace with a banqueting house on its southern side

Discover your inner nerd

7 November 2015 9:00 am

There’s a curious thing about the bowling green in my Suffolk village. The footpath running alongside it is on a…

Spies in the spotlight

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Spying is a branch of philosophy, although you would never guess it from that expression on Daniel Craig’s face. Its…

Porridge Season

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Tuesday morning. The Chopin of golden syrup is going to perform his Breakfast Fantaisie for teaspoon and dessertspoon. Such a…

The Wolves of Memory

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Loping through thick snow, fur matted with ice, they have lost the trace that led them long ago from a…

Unsung hero

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Between the defeat of the government of Digby Denham in 1915 and the election of Campbell Newman in 2012, Queensland…

Porridge Season

5 November 2015 3:00 pm

Tuesday morning. The Chopin of golden syrup is going to perform his Breakfast Fantaisie for teaspoon and dessertspoon. Such a…