Books
The fear behind the Terror
Why did the French Revolution go so wrong, descending into a frenzied bloodbath in just five years? Because by 1794 all trust had vanished, and the country had literally run out of cash, explains Ruth Scurr
Futurist at a dead end
Why increase the number of suicides? Better to increase the output of ink! wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1926 in response…
Suffering in style
Nobody Is Ever Missing takes its title from John Berryman’s ‘Dream Song 29’, a poem which I’d always thought related…
The man who disappeared
In the pre-dawn hours of 20 September 1918, a train, its headlamp off, heading eastwards out of Kransnovodsk on the…
Lights flash — rockets go off — a star is born
The crucial thing to remember about the music business is that it’s a business. If you happen to be creating…
The absolute pits
Looking at the brightly coloured front cover of this book, I felt cheerful; turning it over and seeing the word…
The great defection deception
This is not quite another story about a man who never was. But it is about a man who certainly…
Lights, camera, action
The illuminations of Andrew O’Hagan’s fifth novel are both metaphysical and mundane. In the course of its taut plot, they…
In and out of Africa
‘Double ouzo, hold the Coke,’ Mum ordered at the Mkushi Country Club bar, during spanikopita night. ‘My daughter’s a lesbian.’…
Books & Arts opener
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Beautiful losers
The ‘Great Kings’ of Persia were renowned for their good looks and imposing stature, but they will always, throughout history, be eclipsed by the Greeks, says Tom Holland
A perfect nightmare
Dylan Evans, the author of this book, was one of those oddballs who rather looked forward to the apocalypse, because…
Addicted to trouble
Few first novels are as successful as S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep, which married a startling and unusual…
The writing on the wall
It is a common prejudice about modern politics that it is all focus groups and spin, all public relations and…
The very stuff of life
There was nothing remarkable about the Whitshanks. None of them was famous. None of them could claim exceptional intelligence, and…
Ten days in May
‘If the war is lost, then it is of no concern to me if the people perish in it.’ Bruno…
Soviet smoke and mirrors
‘We all know there will be no real politics.’ A prominent Russian TV presenter is speaking off the record at…
Results
The school holidays in the final furlong and the next new phase and term in clear sight. This is when…
Books & Arts opener
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Results
The school holidays in the final furlong and the next new phase and term in clear sight. This is when…
Results
The school holidays in the final furlong and the next new phase and term in clear sight. This is when…
Bad boys of fashion
Philip Hensher explores a dangerously intoxicating world, and discovers just how quickly famous designers can become an irrelevance
Muck and brass
The whole idea of capitalism, according to Enlightenment philosophers, was that it created a positive spiral of moral behaviour. ‘Concern…
Divinely decorative
Italian cabinets and tables decorated with inlaid semi-precious stones known as ‘pietre dure’ were a ‘must-have’ for English milords returning…
One dark summer’s day
Of all the big battalions of books marking the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo that have come my way,…
