Books
Marvellous, murderous city
When Stefan Zweig first arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1936, he was overwhelmed not only by the city’s magnificent…
When the boys come home
Matthew Green, former Financial Times and Reuters correspondent, remains unimpressed by officialdom’s response to casualties who aren’t actually bleeding: Ever…
For better, for worse
Before I read this book, I wasn’t aware that I was a creationist. But Matt Ridley tells me I am,…
Books and Arts opener
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Remembering P.J. Kavanagh
‘Elms at the end of twilight are very interesting,’ wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins in his journal: ‘Against the sky they…
Hoof-trimming
The below is an unpublished poem, written for Moortown, the verse-diary of Ted Hughes’s experiences of farming in Devon in…
On the way to Plumpton
We pull up at Wivelsfield, under a blue sky, and glance out at the one figure on the platform: a…
Review
(reading Daphne Rooke) Thank you for the book. It reminded me in the way she writes, dry as the Karoo,…
Remembering P.J. Kavanagh
‘Elms at the end of twilight are very interesting,’ wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins in his journal: ‘Against the sky they…
Hoof-trimming
The below is an unpublished poem, written for Moortown, the verse-diary of Ted Hughes’s experiences of farming in Devon in…
On the way to Plumpton
We pull up at Wivelsfield, under a blue sky, and glance out at the one figure on the platform: a…
Review
(reading Daphne Rooke) Thank you for the book. It reminded me in the way she writes, dry as the Karoo,…
Hero or collaborator?
Simon Baron-Cohen wonders whether the humane Hans Asperger may finally have betrayed the vulnerable children in his care in Nazi-occupied Vienna
Waiting for Utopia
The Soviet Union was a nation of bus stops. Cars were hard to come by, so a vast public transport…
The trip of a lifetime
Aldous Huxley reported his first psychedelic experience in The Doors of Perception (1954), a bewitching little volume that soon became…
Time out of mind
There can hardly be two novelists less alike than Sebastian Faulks and Will Self, in style and in content. Faulks…
A karaoke version of Kafka
The Blue Guitar is John Banville’s 16th novel. Our narrator-protagonist is a painter called Oliver Orme. We are in Ireland,…
Things left undead
In the afterword to this sixth book, Aleksandar Hemon dedicates a word of thanks to his agent for keeping a…
Foaming with much blood
According to Francis Bacon, the House of York was ‘a race often dipped in its own blood’. That being so,…
Come rain or shine
‘Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing,’ pleads Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. ‘Whenever people…
The powers that were
Ivan Maisky was the Russian ambassador in London from 1932 to 1943, and his knowledge of London, and affection for…
A goddess, a city and a tree
Known for her strength, Athena can throw a spear like a dart, and on the day of the contest for…
Humour and horror for children
In the Californian town of San Bernadino, children are going missing; smiling faces grace a gallery of milk cartons. One…
The brutal mask of anarchy
In September 1939 Britain went to war against Germany, ostensibly in defence of Poland. One big secret that the British…
Books and arts opener
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