Books
Palaces for the people
Sir Winston Churchill did not invent the prefab, but on 26 March 1944 he made an important broadcast promising to…
They had a dream
One of the easiest mistakes to make about history is to assume that the past is like the recent past,…
Talking himself into madness
‘There are the Alps. What is there to say about them?/ They don’t make sense. Fatal glaciers, crags cranks climb,…
An idler’s idyll
Oblomov, first published in 1859, is the charming tale of a lazy but lovable aristocrat in 19th-century Russia. The novel’s…
Flotsam and jetsam flung across the shore
Writing to a god seems a presumptuous thing. Who are we, feeble mortal creatures whose lives pass in the blink…
Title Stories: Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Lazarus is back
Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, Kim Beazley, still quips that John Winston Howard is his nemesis. This does not…
The Irony of Wislava Szymborska
In London, I remember the indignation. Surely the Nobel prize should have gone to Zbigniew Herbert, the Polish poet we…
Title Stories: Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The post Title Stories: Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to…
The Irony of Wislava Szymborska
In London, I remember the indignation. Surely the Nobel prize should have gone to Zbigniew Herbert, the Polish poet we…
Title Stories: Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
When Hitler’s dream came true
In 1946, in the aftermath of a devastating war, the world seemed a very dark place indeed, says Sam Leith
What a saga!
Hugh Walpole, now almost forgotten, was a literary giant. Descended from the younger brother of the 18th-century prime minister Robert…
Walking the same walk
Mark Cocker is the naturalist writer of the moment, with birds his special subject. His previous book, Birds and People,…
Resurrection men
Ghostly doings are afoot in Edwardian London. Choking fog rolls over the treacle- black Thames. Braziers cast eerie shadows in…
Beyond Endurance
Polar explorers are often cast as mavericks, and this is hardly surprising. The profession requires a disdain for pseudo-orthodoxies and,…
A jaunty romp of rape and pillage
The Brethren, by Robert Merle, who died at the age of 95 ten years ago, was originally published in 1977,…
The seeds of Wisdom
The Lawrence books are piling up, aren’t they? I don’t mean the author of The Rainbow, though as I write…
Title Stories: My Man Jeeves By P.G. Wodehouse
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One detective bows out…
Some years ago I met the Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell at the Savoy Hotel in London, where he was…
… and another is resurrected
First, a confession. I have never cared much for Hercule Poirot. In this I am not alone, for his creator…
We sat bewitched
Nearly 50 years ago we made our way into an inner place, a semi-subterranean room, in a peculiar college. A…
Back in the mean streets
Aficionados of detective fiction have long known that the differences between the soft- and hard-boiled school are so profound that,…
A terrible beauty
Anyone thinking of bringing out a book on Waterloo at the moment must be very confident, very brave or just…
Comforting sounds to cook to
When you think about it, Radio 4 is mostly a pile of old toss. Money Box qualifies as an anaesthetic,…
