Books
Alive and kicking
Four years after his death, it is still faintly surprising to recall that Christopher Hitchens is no longer resident on…
Tricks of the trade
This book, the blurb warns us, was written by ‘an established voice in popular psychology, with a regular column on…
Siftings
And we awake like children to tiny snow sprinkled on shed and car roofs, thinking, Will it last, will it…
Very much like a whale
In principle, freediving is simple and perilous: divers take one breath, then dive as deep as they can, with no…
A legend in her own time
I usually dread the final 15 minutes of a celebrity interview: the awkward section during which the writer must steer…
Recent crime fiction
We fully expect con artists to be caught in a sting themselves, but even with that thought constantly in mind…
Kerr’s curse
Here it is, yet another book on the Dismissal. The fall of Gough Whitlam in 1975 has created quite a…
Sharing the Dog
The Dog share didn’t work out well in the end. For a start, Dog — no mean manipulator — cadged…
Siftings
And we awake like children to tiny snow sprinkled on shed and car roofs, thinking, Will it last, will it…
Sharing the Dog
The Dog share didn’t work out well in the end. For a start, Dog — no mean manipulator — cadged…
Siftings
And we awake like children to tiny snow sprinkled on shed and car roofs, thinking, Will it last, will it…
Charlemagne’s legacy
The Holy Roman Empire has been much maligned over the centuries. In fact it worked remarkably well, says Jonathan Steinberg
A pitiful wreck
When I look at the black-and-white photograph of Julian Barnes on the flap of his latest book, the voice of…
Tracking the super cats
Of all charismatic animals, tigers are surely the most filmed, televised, documented, noisily cherished and, paradoxically, the most persecuted on…
Age cannot wither her
There’s something reassuring about 98-year-old Diana Athill. She’s stately and well-ordered, like the gardens at Ditchingham Hall in Norfolk, her…
Drying out in the Orkneys
‘If I were to go mad,’ Amy Liptrot writes in her memoir of alcoholism and the Orkneys, ‘It would come…
The medium is the message
Molly Crabapple is an American artist and Drawing Blood is the story of her life. That life has only been…
Girl about town
The old ditty got it wrong: it should have been ‘Maybe it’s because I’m not a Londoner that I love…
One holy mess
This novel, John Irving’s 14th, took the sheen off my Christmas, and here are the reasons. The comments on…
Revolution now and then
Maxim Gorky was trumpeted as ‘the great proletarian writer’ by Soviet critics, who considered his novel The Mother one of…
A Day Off
Well, I’ll go window-shopping in Larousse for seeds of words. Strangely, they’re not for sale — you help yourself to…
Child’s play
In Australia there are tens of thousands of emotionally stable, financially secure but medically infertile people. As much as they…
A Day Off
Well, I’ll go window-shopping in Laroussefor seeds of words. Strangely, they’re not for sale — you help yourself to what…
A Day Off
Well, I’ll go window-shopping in Laroussefor seeds of words. Strangely, they’re not for sale — you help yourself to what…
One for all
China’s brutal one-child policy was not only inhuman; it will profoundly damage the rest of the world, says Hilary Spurling
