Books
Witness to the truth
George Bell (1883–1958) was, in many respects, a typical Anglican prelate of his era. He went to Westminster and Christ…
Pure and endless light
There has been extraordinarily little bright sunlight in the far northwest corner of Britain over the past year. Damp, drizzling…
When pop gave way to rock
According to David Hepworth, the year he turned 21 was also the year when ‘a huge proportion of the most…
‘Help the British anyhow’
The sacrifices made by India on the Allies’ behalf in the second world war would profoundly affect the country’s future for better or worse, says Philip Hensher
Sick transit
Sitting at her desk at the BBC in March 2006, researching a documentary about the Olympic Games, Caroline Jones pressed…
Going global
We can all identify decades in which the world moved forward. Wars are not entirely negative experiences: the social and…
Tainted love
In 1963, when the bloom was still on the rose, Bob Dylan described Woodstock as a place where ‘we stop…
A mix of myths
With ‘both arms stretched out like a starfish, her long hair floating like seaweed at the sides of her body’,…
Disgusted of X-ville
Eileen is an accomplished, disturbing and creepily funny first novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, the latest darling of the Paris Review,…
Sexy self-advertising
At nearly eight foot high and five foot wide, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s portrait of herself with two of her students is…
Murder most foul
On 1 November 2006 Alexander Litvinenko, ex-KGB officer and by then a British citizen, met two of his former colleagues,…
Diced heart and a full-bodied red
Valerio Varesi, the Turin-born crime writer, displays a typically Italian interest (I would say) in conspiracy theory. The Italian term…
Worshipping the sun
The Sun is a star that many astronomers assume is only worth studying because of its averageness; it’s middle-aged and…
Neighbours and strangers
Margaret Forster, who died on 8 February, excelled at writing about complex relationships between women. Even old friends, she demonstrated,…
Sins of omission
My last review for The Spectator was of Julian Barnes’s biographical novel about Shostakovitch. A Girl in Exile also depicts…
Following the followers
In his new book Apostle Tom Bissell has an advantage over writers who go looking for Jesus: he can start…
Books & arts
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God’s children
Once upon a time, Christianity in Australia was seen as the One True Faith. These days, it is likely to…
A gift from beyond the grave
Andrew Motion finds a touching parallel between Virgil’s unfinished Aeneid and Seamus Heaney’s barely finished translation of Book VI
Too high, too fast
You have to get nearly halfway through this book before it starts to show some life. Until that point, as…
One of history’s saddest chapters
One afternoon in the early 1990s, an elderly gentleman from Alicante told me of the tragedy that had occurred at…
Mother courage
Helen Stevenson’s daughter Clara has cystic fibrosis. Love Like Salt is an account of living with the disease, but it…
Everything in black and white
This is a quite remarkable book. Badly written, devoid of anything even vaguely approaching a methodology, patronising, hideously mistaken on…
Pox-ridden and power-crazed
Poor old Henry IV: labelled (probably unfairly) as a leper, but accurately as a usurper, he has been one of…
A sex vampire on wheels
The title of this book tells you a lot. Jack Sutherland, who grew up in London and Los Angeles, worked…
