Books
A hint of anarchy everywhere
For a genre that is frequently dismissed as dead, travel writing is proving a remarkably stubborn survivor. If anything, this…
A tale of cloaks and daggers
You don’t need to know the opera Tosca to understand and enjoy this book about Puccini’s most notorious villain, Vitellio…
Super man of legend
On 13 March 2014 a congregation of 2,000 people, including many of the great and the good, gathered in Westminster…
Who was then the gentleman?
Considering that it was, as Melvyn Bragg rightly puts it, ‘the biggest popular uprising ever experienced in England’, the Peasants’…
What an absolute darling you are!
Iris Murdoch’s emotionally hectic novels have been enjoying a comeback lately, with an excellent Radio 4 dramatisation of The Sea,…
King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
Great men rarely come smaller than Haile Selassie. In photographs, the golden crowns, pith helmets and grey felt homburgs he…
Long nights of delicious horror
The thick of autumn is upon us, dear reader, and with it the shivers. Around Hallowe’en you may be tempted…
In Other Eyes
Someone to trust with parcels, because he’s ‘always in’; the character who locks the gate at night and lingers to…
The swastika was always in plain sight
Ordinary Germans under the Third Reich did have wills of their own, argues Dominic Green. Most actively embraced Nazi ideology, and were aware of the extermination of the Jews. As the war worsened for them, what did they think they were fighting for?
Charlotte Brontë: Cinderella or ugly sister?
Preparations for next year’s bicentennial celebrations of the birth of Charlotte Brontë haven’t exactly got off to a flying start.…
David Mitchell is in a genre of his own
David Mitchell’s new book, Slade House, is not quite a novel and not really a collection of short stories. It…
What does it really mean to have a tyrannical father?
What was it like, asks Jay Nordlinger, to have Mao as your father, or Pol Pot, or Papa Doc? The…
Would even Blair have put Felix Dennis in the Lords?
This is not only an authorised but a commissioned biography. Felix Dennis, the tiny, depraved, manipulative media mogul, was hardly…
John Lennon’s desert island luxury
Beatlebone is an account of a journey, a psychedelic odyssey, its protagonist — at times its narrator — John Lennon,…
From Spike Milligan — and Marge Simpson — with love, light, peace and great respect
This book is a serious bit of kit. Its hard covers measure 28.9 by 21 centimetres, and it weighs 1.62…
When English Catholics were considered as dangerous as jihadis
Martyrdom, these days, does not get a good press. Fifty years ago English Catholics could take a ghoulish pride in…
Behind the scenes at the Brighton bombing
Sadly, I can’t see it catching on, but one of the notable things about Jonathan Lee’s new novel is that…
Green is the colour of happiness
According to this wonderfully thought-provoking book, human attachment to plants was much more evident in the 19th century than it…
Beyond the call of duty: the kindness of strangers is a pleasing mystery
When I applied to medical school, an experienced doctor offered me some advice: ‘Don’t give them reason to think you’re…
Margaret Thatcher’s most surprising virtue: imagination
Margaret Thatcher’s second administration saw bitter divisions at home, but abroad the breakthrough in Anglo-Soviet relations really did change history, says Philip Hensher
The best thing about Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Inequality is the paper it’s printed on
Ten years ago, a philosophy professor at Princeton wrote a book with a provocative, slightly indecent title. It was a…
Curtain call for Ruth Rendell
Ruth Rendell’s final novel, Dark Corners, is about how psychological necessity can drive perfectly ordinary people either to terrible deeds…
The greatest surprise about Nigeria on its centenary is that it exists at all
A giant was born in 1914, an African giant. The same year European powers set about each other in the…
The polyphonous Babel of global music
‘Following custom, when the Siamese conquered the Khmer they carried off much of the population, including most of their musicians,…
Mary Beard minds her S, P, Q and R
Having rattled and routed Mark Antony and his bewitching Egyptian at the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian was…
