Books
A clash of two cultures
‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ Philip Larkin’s most famous line has appeared in the Spectator repeatedly, and…
Chance would be a fine thing
If I prang your car, we can swap insurance details. In the past, it would have been necessary for you…
Gods and monsters
Although Nepal’s earthquake last April visited our television screens with images of seismic devastation, the disaster has probably had little…
Crossing continents
Mysteries abound here — enigmas of identity and betrayal, long-buried secret transactions leading to quests — for a lost child,…
Women and song
Just a few weeks ago, Germany’s VAN magazine published an interview with the composer Olga Neuwirth. In it she describes…
Escape from the hood
The author of the bestseller Between the World and Me and recipient of a MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ last year, Ta-Nehisi…
Running the triple crown
The story of the Czechoslovak runner Emil Zátopek is a tale from athletics’ age of innocence. Without the aid of…
Who’s who and what’s what
Asked to name a reference book, you may well choose the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary. But…
A selection of short stories
How many debut collections does it take to stand up to one of the most accomplished short-story writers of the…
The gooseberry fool
On 10 April 1772, the biographer James Boswell recorded in his diary that he had hugged himself with pleasure on…
Books and arts opener
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The sentimental socialist
Having done something similar myself, I wondered how Bill Shorten would handle the challenge of a campaign biography. My book,…
The spaces in between
An unfinished painting can provide a startling glimpse of the artist at work. But the common tendency to prefer it to a finished work is being taken to extremes, says Philip Hensher
The mother of all crimes
During the heatwave in the summer of 1895, the Gentlemen v. Players match at Lords Cricket Ground on 8 July…
Reading the waves
Water accounts for 70 per cent of your planet, and 60 per cent of your body. Yet when do you…
Inside of a dog
Before I read this book, I thought I knew what a dog was. It barks, it wags its tail, it…
‘Mother says I look like a sick ostrich’
Most modern biographers feed off celebrity like vampires let loose in a blood bank. That is why their books sell:…
Reclaiming Nietzsche
Had you been down at Naumburg barracks early in March 1867, you might have seen a figure take a running…
Mao devours his foes
Frank Dikötter, professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong and winner of the Samuel Johnson prize in 2011,…
Broken and mad
In the final months of 1914, medical officers on the Western Front began seeing a new kind of casualty. Soldiers…
The death of the author
The ‘journey’ — at least the one played out in public — begins with an announcement that you are incurable.…
The horse from hell
There were moments while reading this sprawling, ambitious novel when I thought I was reading a masterpiece. But at other…
A mirror to the world
The best new books celebrating Shakespeare’s centenary are full of enthusiasm and insight — but none plucks out the heart of his mystery, says Daniel Swift
Get thee to a notary
Given this year’s 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, there was always going to be a slew of new publications; few,…
When in Rome…
‘Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime,’ begins…
