Books
Books and arts opener
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Epitaph for a Star
A chance in a million: he was perfectly cast In the role of his own life, though he almost flipped…
Epitaph for a Star
A chance in a million: he was perfectly cast In the role of his own life, though he almost flipped…
The man who wrecked New York
John R. MacArthur on the bureaucratic titan who gratuitously bulldozed a great city and displaced and demoralised half a million of its inhabitants
Toxic fun with Mum and Dad
In 2008, when Taylor Wilson was 14, he created a working nuclear fusion reactor, ‘a miniature sun on earth’. At…
One helluva racket
For a music fan, the quiz question, ‘Who wrote “This Land is Your Land”?’ might seem laughably easy. Yet if…
Love it or loathe it
At the heart of the eschatological ideology of the Islamic State is the belief that when the world ends (and…
The real theatre of war
The history of ‘great events’, Voltaire wrote, is ‘hardly more than the history of crimes’. Physically, the war in Asia…
Detroit’s new colonials
In the opening sentence of this subtle and finely poised novel, the narrator, Greg Marnier, known as ‘Marny’, admits that…
The raffish toff with a winning Formula
Max Mosley’s autobiography has been much anticipated: by the motor racing world, by the writers and readers of tabloid newspapers,…
Their heads in the clouds
As I got into a Brighton taxi this morning, my driver’s first words were ‘apparently it’ll clear in a couple…
A little loving irony
It doesn’t mean much to say that Renata Adler’s journalism isn’t as interesting as her novels — almost nothing is…
The oldest sport in the world
This is the best book you’ll ever read about mixed martial arts fighting; and this will still be the case…
Cold-blooded
An unidentified lizard, the same size as a Grecian stick, the colour of dirtied sand, holds the dissolving power of…
Books and arts opener
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
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…
