Books
A people horrible to behold
The much-lamented journalist and bon viveur Sam White, late of the rue du Bac, The Spectator and the Evening Standard,…
Stop calling me ‘Goat’
The title of Tim Parks’s 17th novel is false advertising, because Thomas and Mary: A Love Story is barely a…
Rescuing old Nick
In the conclusion to his very substantial study of England’s least known and most misunderstood Baroque architect, Owen Hopkins discusses…
Frozen beards and hot tempers
Born in New South Wales in 1888, George Finch climbed Mount Canobolas as a boy, unleashing, in the thin air,…
The trouble with mothers
For a child, the idea of ‘knowing’ your mother doesn’t compute; she’s merely there. As an adult, there may be…
Sixty years on
The book of the year has long been a favoured genre in popular history, and is a commonplace today. While…
The big steal
In recent weeks, North Korea allegedly developed a hydrogen bomb and hangover-free booze. This would be a worrying combination in…
The inglorious Twelfth
Most people know more about the 12th century than they think they do. This is, as Richard Huscroft reminds us…
Tawdry tales of Tinseltown
This collection of Hollywood tittle-tattle is moderately interesting, unpleasantly salacious and largely unsourced, says Philip Hensher
‘Crazy mixed-up Yid’
Even David Litvinoff’s surname was a concoction. It was really Levy. Wanting something ‘more romantic’, he appropriated that of his…
Losing a Crown in the National Portrait Gallery
The cafe was full of connoisseurs of the scones. As he bit into his flapjack a sinister uncoupling took place…
Roaming in the gloaming
One of the epigraphs to Peter Davidson’s nocturne on Europe’s arts of twilight is from Hegel: ‘The owl of Minerva…
Odi et amo
Reading Daisy Dunn’s ambitious first book, a biography of the salty (in more ways than one) Roman poet Catullus, it…
Down and out in Park Lane and Plaistow
‘I was born in London,’ Ben Judah tells us early in this vivid portrait of Britain’s capital, ‘but I no…
Unreliable Narrator
If a clock can be a household’s totem then we remain hopeful ours will show us an accurate blue moon…
Riddles in the sand
Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £20.00. Tel: 08430 600033
Muskets v. the Highland charge
What a wretched lot the Stuarts were, the later ones especially, the males at least. James II fled England without…
From surgeon’s scrubs to patient’s gown
Who would you trust to take a blade to your brain? Medical schools and hospitals, arbiters of this outrageous intimacy,…
Easy Street
Roller skating down the main road in the cycle lane, her easy, smooth and flowing scissor stride on booted castors,…
We are not all in this together
Not so long ago I stumbled into a little pop-up in Hoxton: a delightful tearoom hardly bigger than a walk-in…
The making of a legend
For one week in July 2010, the aspiring spree killer Raoul Moat was the only news. ‘Aspiring’ because he didn’t…
Humboldt’s gift
The Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt was once the most famous man in Europe bar Napoleon. And if you judge…
Escaping the Slough of despond
Most spy novels have a comfortable air of familiarity. We readers can take moles in our stride. We have grown…
Location
Old friends, we scarcely speak of death or dying. As ever, the displacements continue, just as when we used to…
No end to the Final Solution
David Cesarani, Research Professor of History at Royal Holloway University of London, died at the age of 58 on 25…
