Books
A misery memoir from Alan Cumming that's surprisingly thoughtful
Misery loves company. Anyone who doubts this old adage should pop into their local bookshop, because besides celebrity chefs and…
Goodman’s Garden
Where did they all go? Thickets of love and pain rustle in a dry light and skeins of corvidae traipse…
From head-shrinking to skull-seeking: a history of the severed head
A severed head, argues Frances Larson in her sprightly new book, is ‘simultaneously a person and a thing… an apparently…
Europe in 60 languages
So Basque is an ergative language! Well, I never. I couldn’t have told you that a week ago. I even…
A brown-noser's history of the Old Vic and National Theatre
The moment Waterloo Bridge was planned across the Thames, a new theatre to serve the transpontine coach trade was inevitable.…
In search of dead men's bones
Skulls, femurs, ribs, pelvises, piled on top of each other in a chaotic heap: this, Denise Inge discovered, was what…
Némirovsky's love letter to the France that spurned her and killed her
By 1940 Irène Némirovsky, who had arrived in France at the age of 16 as a refugee from Kiev, had…
Which great French novelist was also a crossword-setter?
One could have endless fun setting quiz questions about Georges Perec. Which French novelist had a scientific paper, ‘Experimental demonstration…
Books and arts
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Genocidal thoughts
It takes a certain type of courage for a writer to complete a book and then admit that he does…
Goodman’s Garden
Where did they all go? Thickets of love and pain rustle in a dry light and skeins of corvidae traipse…
Title Stories: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
The post Title Stories: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join…
Goodman’s Garden
Where did they all go? Thickets of love and pain rustle in a dry light and skeins of corvidae traipse…
Title Stories: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
The Edge of the World: deep subject, shallow history
Michael Pye appears out of his depth in a cold, grey sea in the mists of time, says Adam Nicolson
Blue Note's 75 years of hot jazz
This is a big book, a monumental text with 800 illustrations, 400 of them in colour, to be contemplated more…
A big literary beast's descent into incoherence
Something odd happened between the advance publicity for this book and its printed appearance. Trailed as addressing the troubled history…
Marble-mania: when England became a spiritual heir to the ancients
Phrases such as ‘Some aspects of…’ are death at the box-office, so it is not exactly unknown for the titles…
The writer who showed the West there was more to South America than magic realism
Early on in this ‘Biography in Conversations’ we’re told that the Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño ‘continued to see himself throughout…
To call this offering a book is an abuse of language
I picked up this book with real enthusiasm. Who cannot be entranced by those 20 years after the second world…
What Julie Burchill's ex-husband thinks of her new memoir
Unchosen is the journalist Julie Burchill’s account of how she — a bright and bratty working-class girl from Bristol —…
The woman who invented the Italian resistance
Italo Calvino, the Italian arch-fabulist, wrote a foreword to this celebrated wartime diary when it appeared in Italy in 1956.…
Autumn Shades
They start to say autumnal in the forecasts, And on the Northern Line the shifting panels Look bleached already. I…
Behind (almost) every great writer is a great garden
It is a truism that writers of all kinds often find inspiration and solace in their gardens, as well as…
What went so wrong for Vaclav Havel?
The unforgettable moment a quarter of a century ago when the Berlin Wall came down was the most vivid drama…
