Books
Finders keepers
Isis’s blowing up of the Roman theatre at Palmyra should concentrate our minds: our world heritage is vulnerable. Not that…
A topsy-turvy world
‘A crane fell on top of me in Kladno in 1952, after which my writing got better,’ Bohumil Hrabal (who…
Away with the fairies
As an erstwhile obituarist, I pity the poor hack who had to write up the life of Laurence Oliphant —…
An innocent abroad
For those who read the weekly music press during the 1980s, David Quantick’s was a name you could rely on.…
About a boy
A boy, a car, a journey, a question: the first sentence of Elizabeth Day’s new novel goes like this: From…
A devilish instrument of war
‘China is a sleeping lion,’ Napoleon reportedly remarked. ‘When it wakes, the world will tremble.’ There is no need to…
Books and arts opener
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Cods wallop
One might hope that as a Hellene, Niki Savva could shed some light on the tragedy of the Abbott government…
‘Excess is obnoxious’
Justin Marozzi on the bitter irony of Aleppo’s ancient motto
A disarming heroine
The name Freya is derived from the old Norse word for ‘spouse’, perhaps Odin’s. As a goddess she is variously…
Putting the sun in the shade
About a century ago, scientists started meddling with an unfamiliar force of nature and the rest of us were terrified.…
Reds against Whites
On the 24–25 October 1917 (according to the Julian Calendar, or 7–8 November according to the Gregorian) the political disputes which…
Strangers in their native land
Though it seems to begin as an affectionate memorial to his maternal grandparents, a testimonial to a rare and perfectly…
When sharing isn’t fair
In Silicon Valley, renting out is the new selling —and renting out stuff that belongs to other people can be…
A host of unquiet spirits
As its title suggests, Julie Myerson’s tenth novel is about stoppage: the kind that happens when one suffers a loss…
Mr Spock and I
For a show with a self-proclaimed ‘five-year mission’, Star Trek hasn’t done badly. Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Wagon train to the stars’…
A good editor and a good man
Before embarking on this book, Jeremy Lewis was told by his friend Diana Athill that his subject, the newspaper editor…
What went wrong
I once asked an American friend to come and talk to the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation. He…
Three writers
This ‘documentary’ of the lives and careers of Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall presents a detailed account,…
‘Existentialism? I don’t know what it is’
We all carried their philosophy around in our youth, says Philip Hensher. But did anyone — including the existentialists themselves — really understand it?
Waspish traditionalist
Randolph Schwabe (b. 1885) was a measured man in art and in life. His drawings are meticulous, closely observed models…
Ruling the digital waves
Everyone, we hear these days, must learn to code. Being able to program computers is the only way to be…
Vile deeds and voyeurism
The title comes from Hamlet but the spirit that hovers over the pages of Javier Marías’s new novel is —…
All things to all men
The ocean that Christopher Oldstone-Moore has set out to chart is as broad as it is shallow: what it has…
Purifying the gymnasium
Toby Young 5 March 2016 9:00 am
When Friedrich Nietzsche was offered a professorship in classical philology at the university of Basel in 1869 he was so…