Books
Bravery
I am not ready for the temple but neither am I ready for the market. Leave me, I pray, a…
Books of the Year: the best and most overrated of 2015
Our regular reviewers choose the best and most overrated books of 2015
There’s nothing wrong with plugging a friend’s book
The advantage of reviewing books by a friend is that you can invite him out for a walk across the…
Charles Williams: sadist or Rosicrucian saint?
Charles Williams was a bad writer, but a very interesting one. Most famous bad writers have to settle, like Sidney…
Patti Smith grows old too gracefully
‘Jesus died for somebody’s sins/ but not mine’: the opening lines of Patti Smith’s 1975 debut album, Horses, find a…
John Paul Stapp: the fastest man on earth, who saved millions
There’s a moment in Craig Ryan’s spectacular biography of John Paul Stapp — the maverick American Air Force doctor who,…
A soothing Negroni for la dolce vita
The first draft of the famous story was called ‘A Martini as Big as the Ritz’. That’s not true, but…
Jonathan Coe’s raucous social satire smoulders with anger behind the fun
When Rachel, one of the unreliable narrators of Number 11, wants to ‘go back to the very beginning’, she starts…
An elegy for Concorde, the most beautiful airliner of all time, that died aged 27
The Concorde experience, a fleeting indulgence in luxurious grandiosity, began each day with circumvention of the hugger-mugger of the hoi…
Sic transit: the buildings we treasure most are often the ones we’ve never seen
Here are two books which have almost nothing in common: form, function, source material, methodology, all utterly different. The surprise…
The best new cook books include recipes for Toad-in-the-hole, braised Pilot Whale and seal soup
Timing is everything, and few cookbooks come at an apter moment than Mamushka (Mitchell Beazley, £25) by the excellently named…
He knew he was right
A highlight of this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival was the Rough Magic Theatre Company’s production of The Train, a musical…
Loneliness and the love of friends
When Hugh and Mirabel Cecil’s book In Search of Rex Whistler was published in 2012, the late Brian Sewell reviewed…
Life in the chain gang
In 2004, French police officers searching the home of the professional cyclist David Millar found some syringes and empty phials…
Too much gush
The cover of Edna O’Brien’s 17th novel sports a handsome quote from Philip Roth: ‘The great Edna O’Brien has written…
Celebrity lives
I learned from this little lot that if one has read The Diary of a Nobody, then one can derive…
Books and arts opener
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The best British short stories — from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith
In this handsome two-volume anthology, Philip Hensher convincingly establishes himself as a world authority on the short story, says Ian Sansom
From the Big Smoke to the Big Choke
‘A foggy day in London town,’ croons Fred Astaire in the 1937 musical comedy A Damsel in Distress, puffing nonchalantly…
Where would America be without Gloria Steinem?, asks Carmen Callil
This is a book written by a most admirable woman, which is nevertheless — with some rare and excellent exceptions…
Umberto Eco really tries our patience
Colonna, the protagonist of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, is the first to admit he is a loser. A middle-aged literary…
Designing the swimming car, the Doodlebug and the Panzer tank was all in a day’s work for Ferdinand Porsche
The aggressive character of the famous German sports car, in a sort of sympathetic magic, often transfers itself to owner-drivers.…
When escape to the sun — or even to Devon — goes horribly wrong
A character in Sophie Hannah’s A Game for All the Family (Hodder, £14.99, pp. 432) presents a theory: ‘Mysteries are…
Warning: this book only contains strong language
Dan Marshall, the author of this memoir, loves to swear. ‘It’s very difficult for me to write a sentence without…
A chronic case of mass hysteria
There have been many books devoted to the terrible events that took place in the small rural community of Salem…
