Books
The madness of Prince Rogers Nelson
The pop star’s extensive entourage were expected to be on call 24/7, responding to his every whim while turning a blind eye to the French farce of his love life
From riches to rags: The Effingers, by Gabriele Tergit, reviewed
Beginning in 1878, this family saga charts the success of two Jewish brothers in Berlin before the coming of the Nazis threatens not only their livelihoods but their lives
What is it about Bob Dylan that sends writers mad?
Though a witness to many seminal Dylan moments, Ron Rosenbaum has produced what feels like a long voice-note after the pub, full of bluster, conspiracy and giddy conjecture
Does running 42 Lakeland fells in less than 24 hours really bring ‘serenity’?
The Keswick hotelier Bob Graham achieved this in 1932 – and nowadays running improbable distances is considered almost normal, as well as an important factor in mental wellbeing
The scourge of plagiarism reaches crisis point
Since the launch of Chat GPT 3.5 in November 2022, the whole basis of how we assess work, especially in schools, universities and publishing, has had the rug pulled from under it
The anxious gaiety of Britain’s interwar years
With the gradual extension of the franchise, a more egalitarian society flocked to theatres, music halls and holiday camps in a desperate bid to leave the trauma of war behind
The last chapter: Departure(s), by Julian Barnes, reviewed
Aged 80, the Booker prize-winning novelist bids farewell to his devoted readers in a masterpiece of narrative trickery
The spiritual yearnings of David Bowie
Gnosticism was one of Bowie’s lifelong obsessions and the outer reaches of religious thought inspired many of his lyrics
The scandal of California’s stolen water
Ever since the building of the 233-mile Los Angeles Aqueduct, begun in 1905, diversion of water by unscrupulous conglomerates has left swathes of the Golden State a toxic desert
Coming of age in Melbourne: Landscape with Landscape, by Gerald Murnane, reviewed
The protagonists of these six linked stories are much like the young Murnane himself, dreaming of becoming a writer and escaping to the wilds of Australia
Odd man out: The Burning Origin, by Daniele Mencarelli, reviewed
An ambitious designer based in Milan returns home to Rome on a visit and finds himself torn between nostalgia for childhood and disgust for his underachieving friends
The many shades of Pink Floyd
Founded 60 years ago, the multi-million-selling rock band has had five incarnations to date, with members dying, resigning or suing each other in a series of blistering law suits
After the party: One of Us, by Elizabeth Day, reviewed
In a sequel to Day’s 2017 novel The Party, the art historian Martin Gilbert dreams of revenge on his former friend Ben Fitzmaurice, now a dazzling Tory politician with a dark secret
The glorious ventilation shafts hiding in plain sight
Victorians took pleasure in artfully disguising these essential life-saving structures – and contemporary architects continue the tradition to equally spectacular effect
The adventures of an improbable rock journalist
Cameron Crowe started writing for Rolling Stone aged just 15. But both as reporter and later as filmmaker, his innate decency made him decidedly ‘uncool’
Global fish stocks have been perilous for decades – so why is still so little being done?
Dredgers continue to destroy the seabed, illegal fishing vessels routinely encroach on no-take zones and governments persist in granting unsustainable catch quotas to their national fleets
An entertaining demolition of futurology
Nick Foster explores the various ways we think about the future, from thrilled anticipation through to panicked doom-mongering
The lionising of Richard I over the centuries
The Plantagenet king whose life was packed with glamour, blood and brutality would have relished the heroic legends that steadily accrued after his death
No passive utopia: Tibetan Sky, by Ning Ken, reviewed
Tibet is portrayed as an uneasy cultural crossroads where globalisation, spirituality and the political traumas of two peoples collide in this sardonic, erudite novel
A supernatural western: Tom’s Crossing, by Mark Z. Danielowski, reviewed
We know from the outset that things will end very darkly indeed in this epic novel set in Utah during the run-up to Halloween, 1982
The fertile chaos of Albert Camus’s mind
A comprehensive new edition of the writer’s notebooks allows us to take a deep dive into his theories about absurdity, tragedy, nobility and death and his schemes for future stories
The strange afterlife of This is Spinal Tap
The creators of the mother of all mockumentaries share anecdotes about the film’s origins, how it was made, why it matters and the way fiction transformed into fact
A prolonged love affair: The Two Roberts, by Damian Barr, reviewed
A tender, evocative novel portrays the lives of the once celebrated painters Colquhoun and MacBride, from their first meeting in Glasgow to their fractious later years
Glamour and intrigue: The Silver Book, by Olivia Laing, reviewed
A rigorously researched novel mingles fact and fiction in retelling the events that led up to the murder of the film director Pier Paolo Pasolini on 2 November 1975
The history of modern Ireland, seen through the lives of its leaders
Reading the biographies of its 16 taoisigh, we can trace Ireland’s astonishing progress from poverty-stricken backwater to thriving liberal democracy
