Books
In the bunker
Wars make myths; probably no-one understood that better than Charles Bean, Australia’s first true war writer and a person who…
Talisman
She’s meant to be good with words, used to medicating others with a timely postcard — FABULOUS WOMAN YOU! Today…
i.m. AMSTRAD
Dear Lord Sugar, it’s been a sad week. A kind of bereavement, really. Today, a council employee in a yellow…
Spring
The sparrows banter in the bushes that crowd the walls of the World’s End alleyway as I walk to the…
Talisman
She’s meant to be good with words, used to medicating others with a timely postcard — FABULOUS WOMAN YOU! Today…
i.m. AMSTRAD
Dear Lord Sugar, it’s been a sad week. A kind of bereavement, really. Today, a council employee in a yellow…
Spring
The sparrows banter in the bushes that crowd the walls of the World’s End alleyway as I walk to the…
Too little, too late
The atrocities suffered by an estimated one million Armenians in 1915 have been largely ignored by historians and officially denied by the Turks. It’s a centenary we can’t afford to neglect, says Justin Marozzi
Trailing clouds of glory
With Alpine wreckage still being sifted, this is either a very good or a very bad time to write about…
By Air
Astonishing to think That not so long ago First the Brothers Wright Then Louis Blériot Initiated flight. And strapped into…
In a niche of their own
As words commonly used to write about the visual arts become increasingly useful to advertisers, ‘to curate’ is becoming the…
A mingling of blood and ink
Historical fiction is sometimes accused of being remote from modern concerns, a flight towards nostalgia and fantasy. It’s not an…
The nature of belonging
‘I nauseate walking; ’tis a country diversion. I loathe the country and everything that relates to it… Ah l’étourdie! I…
Little brother’s helper
Can there ever have been another book in which one of the authors (Anne Thurston in this case) so effectively…
A neglected corner of Roman history
When Ovid was seeking ‘cures for love’, the most efficient remedy, he wrote, was for a young man to watch…
Pessimism keeps breaking in
State-of-criticism overviews and assessments almost always strike a bleak note —the critical mind naturally angles towards pessimism — so it…
Sink or swim
The Lost Child begins with a scene of 18th-century distress and dissolution down by the docks, as a woman —…
The same old song
T.S. Eliot liked to recall the time he was recognised by his London taxi driver. Surprised, he told the cabbie…
Pure word music
Since his debut with the Booker-nominated The Restraint of Beasts in 1999, Magnus Mills has delighted and occasionally confounded his…
Made in Chelski
It’s surprising there haven’t been more novels drawing on London’s fascination with Russian oligarchs. But how to write about them…
Words
Late afternoon I speak to Mum on the phone; she’s sorting through her past, four hundred or so odd-sized photographs.…
Dangerously close to home
Mystery fans and writers are always looking for new locations in which murder can take place. Attica Locke has an…
Fighting fear with fear
‘Do it with scissors’ was Alfred Hitchcock’s advice for prospective murderers, though a glance at these two biographies reminds us…
Books and arts
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Ends of the earth
This story, second in a projected series (the first was The Thief Fleet, reviewed in these pages 8 December 2012),…
