Books
Books and arts opener
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Cold-blooded
An unidentified lizard, the same size as a Grecian stick, the colour of dirtied sand, holds the dissolving power of…
Cold-blooded
An unidentified lizard, the same size as a Grecian stick, the colour of dirtied sand, holds the dissolving power of…
Filling in the Bloomsbury puzzle
Even the Group considered Bunny Garnett and Henrietta Bingham quite ‘wayward’. Their powerful charms appealed to both sexes, says Anne Chisholm — and they even managed a fling together
The hardest man of all
From the unpromising and desperately unforgiving background that forged his iron will and boundless ambition, Temujin (as Genghis Khan was…
Recent crime fiction
The act of reading always involves identification: with the story, the characters, the author’s intentions. Renée Knight takes this concept…
Into the blue
Jenny Balfour Paul is an indigo dye expert. She has written two books on the subject, and lectures around the…
Sex, violence and lettuces
There is something cruelly beautiful, delightfully frustrating and filthily gorgeous about a Scarlett Thomas novel. Two family trees open and…
Carrying on regardless
This big, bristling, deeply-furrowed book kicks off with a picture of the British countryside just before the second world war.…
Social climbing through the basement
This book has brought out my inner Miliband. A punitive mansion tax on all properties with garden squares in Notting…
Licence to kill
One morning in March 1921 a large man in an overcoat left his house in Charlottenburg, Berlin, to take a…
‘It’s always wrong to starve’
‘My mother and father named me Aron, but my father said they should have named me What Have You Done,…
The devils’ advocate
Jeremy Hutchinson was the doyen of the criminal bar in the 1960s and 1970s. No Old Bailey hack or parvenu…
The Durable Postie
(For Karl) He doesn’t even bother to change out of his uniform, just goes straight to the pub after…
Dick Whittington for the 21st century
Novels of such scope and invention are all too rare; unusual, too, are those of real heart, whose characters you…
Books and arts opener
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
The Durable Postie
(For Karl) He doesn’t even bother to change out of his uniform, just goes straight to the pub after…
The Durable Postie
(For Karl) He doesn’t even bother to change out of his uniform, just goes straight to the pub after…
Guardians of an ideal
The French have always favoured grand, elegant abstractions about the human condition, says Ruth Scurr. It’s part of their national identity
Broken dreams
As Masha Gessen herself admits — and as friends and journalist colleagues repeatedly told her — it was a strange…
Parmenion
Athens The air-raid siren howls Over the quiet, the un-rioting city. It’s just a drill. But the unearthly vowels Ululate…
Swords of honour
Earlier this century I was a guest at a fine dinner, held in a citadel of aristocratic Catholicism, for youngish…
Style over substance
We begin in Paris with an introduction to five insignificant friends. One (Ramon) is walking past the new Chagall exhibition,…
The new rules of dating
An American stand-up comedian Aziz Ansari, who usually performs in Los Angeles and New York, has found time to conduct…
Salvation through music
Ours is the era of everybody’s autobiography. Bookshops groan with misery-lit memoirs — Never Let Me Go, Dysfunction Without Tears…
