Books
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
The other glorious revolution
There was no science before 1572, the year that Tycho Brahe saw a new star in the night sky above…
Act of Faith
This winter morning between seven and eight, half a white moon still present, a ghost not shining on plentiful frost…
Laughter and tears
The Yacoubian Building, the first novel of the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany, sold well over a million copies in…
Anatomy of a bestseller
Every four seconds, somewhere in the world, a Lee Child book is sold. This phenomenal statistic places Child alongside Stephen…
Of hearts and heads
Like most trade unionists in the 1970s and 80s I worked with a fair few communists. Men like Dickie Lawlor,…
Altar, font and arch and pew
John Betjeman, the patron saint of English parish churches, once warned against praising British buildings too much. Be careful before…
Cold comfort for Gibbons fans
One of the great fascinations of a ‘lost’ work by a famous name dredged up out of the vault after…
The painter as poser
Bernard Buffet was no one’s idea of a great painter. Except, that is, Pierre Bergé and Nick Foulkes. Bergé was…
Staying put
Publishing a ‘New York’ novel in the months after 11 September 2001 is a surefire, if accidental, way to make…
Carrots — and no stick
Never mind teaching children to cook: they need to be taught to eat. Obvious? Totally, but this is the choosing…
The Lost Word
I know it cold, the scene in the woods, the grey-toned sky, and snow— the sudden clearing in the underbrush…
