Books
Black Knight
A few forgotten objects Dad passed on: copperplate pens with long nail nibs, still stained black, one coal-fire red, laid…
A cold coming
You can tell a lot about a book from its bibliography. It’s the non-fiction equivalent of skipping to the final…
Black Knight
A few forgotten objects Dad passed on: copperplate pens with long nail nibs, still stained black, one coal-fire red, laid…
Title stories: The moon and sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
The post Title stories: The moon and sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to…
Black Knight
A few forgotten objects Dad passed on: copperplate pens with long nail nibs, still stained black, one coal-fire red, laid…
Title stories: The moon and sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
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Of cabbages and kings
Nigel Jones reviews the first five titles to appear in a new series on British monarchs
Tricks of the trade
The American comic novel is going through an odd phase. Just lately it seems like anything funny must sneak in…
Words to savour
Although entitled Infidelities this collection of short stories could as well be called Choices, because that is what really preoccupies…
Dead poets’ society
In December 1817 Benjamin Robert Haydon — vivid diarist and painter of huge but inferior canvases of historic events —…
A clown on crystal meth
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, Mark Steyn is sort of a hairy, successful version of me—…
Three men, two men, one man and his dog…
In 1960 John Steinbeck set off with his poodle Charley to drive around the United States in a truck equipped…
Answers to ‘Spot the Booker Prize Winners’
by Simon Drew
Answers to ‘Spot the Booker Prize Winners’
1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2002) 2. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (1998) 3. The Sea, The Sea by…
Answers to ‘Spot the Booker Prize Winners’
1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2002) 2. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (1998) 3. The Sea, The Sea by…
Send in the clowns
Nell Gifford joins a colourful troupe of acrobats, contortionists, lion-tamers, freaks and funambulists
Pure Alice in Wonderland
Incredulity is rarely a word that crosses my mind when it comes to garden writing. This genre can, of course,…
Powerful pathos
The impersonator — Rory Bremner, Steve Coogan — speaks, in different voices, to a single primitive pleasure centre in his…
Older and wiser after the storm
The story of Frank Bascombe, a sports-writer turned estate agent but always a New Jersey homebody, has already taken Richard…
Bound and caged, but fighting-fit
It’s always interesting when people succeed in two different arenas — like Mike Nesmith’s mum, who gave the world both…
A hymn to ancient and modern
The Pevsner architectural guides are around halfway through their revisions — though it is like the Forth Bridge, and soon…
Wonders will never cease
The marvellous tales of the title are not just confined to the contents of this book, for the travels and…
Sunset Hails a Rising
O lente, lente currite noctis equi! — Marlowe, after Ovid. La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée. —Valéry. Dying…
In search of the Fatherland
As I grew up half German in England in the 1970s, my German heritage was confined to the few curios…
A heterodox understanding of Jesus
When James Carroll was a boy, lying on the floor watching television, he would glance up at his mother and…
