Books

Flouting convention

13 September 2014 9:00 am

Should one say ‘vicious circle’ or ‘vicious cycle’? That’s a question that just goes round and round inside my head.…

Left

13 September 2014 9:00 am

Who is there left that you can talk to? Days go by. ‘Friendless, deserted’ (The Beggar’s Opera?) — left in…

‘Oppy Wood, 1917, Evening’, 1918, by John Nash

Books and arts

13 September 2014 9:00 am

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Left

11 September 2014 1:00 pm

Who is there left that you can talk to? Days go by. ‘Friendless, deserted’ (The Beggar’s Opera?) — left in…

Out of Reach

11 September 2014 1:00 pm

Think of a hand-slip, a spun summit bothered by mist, the whirr and thrum of dark metals, a stranded face…

Title Stories: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

11 September 2014 1:00 pm

The post Title Stories: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion…

Left

11 September 2014 1:00 pm

Who is there left that you can talk to? Days go by. ‘Friendless, deserted’ (The Beggar’s Opera?) — left in…

Out of Reach

11 September 2014 1:00 pm

Think of a hand-slip, a spun summit bothered by mist, the whirr and thrum of dark metals, a stranded face…

Title Stories: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

11 September 2014 1:00 pm

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

Scenes from a long life. Left to right: the vulnerable young queen, in thrall to Prince Albert; overcoming her demons with the help of John Brown — depicted in a popular souvenir cut-out; and the matriarch as Empress of India

After Albert

6 September 2014 9:00 am

A new, revisionist biography argues that it was only after her husband’s death that Queen Victoria found her true self. Jane Ridley is impressed

The Forgotten Army remembered

6 September 2014 9:00 am

The British who fought in Burma became known as the ‘Forgotten Army’ because this was a neglected theatre of the…

Pile-up on the reincarnation superhighway

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Reincarnation has hovered over David Mitchell’s novels since the birth of his remarkable career. His haunting debut novel, Ghostwritten (1999),…

‘Some find their death by swords and bullets; and some by fluids down the gullet’. Thomas Rowlandson’s illustration of ‘The English Dance of Death’ by William Combe, 1815 — a satire on the evils of drinking gin

From dram shop to Queen Mother’s handbag

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Gin Glorious Gin: How Mother’s Ruin Became the Spirit of London is a jaunty and diverting history of ‘a wonderful…

Off the beaten track

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Vincent Deary is a therapist, and this book is the first part of a trilogy. How We Are is about…

All the usual suspects

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Owen Jones’s first book, Chavs, was a political bestseller. This follow-up skips over the middle classes and goes to the…

Title Stories: A study in scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

6 September 2014 9:00 am

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Lost in transfusion

6 September 2014 9:00 am

The Children Act could hardly be more attuned to the temper of the times, appearing just as our newspapers are…

The Indian lady at the chemist

6 September 2014 9:00 am

I trust her look the shadow round her eyes her level stare explaining paracetamol these ones are strong take them…

‘The Astronomer’, 1867, a portrait of Sir John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron, great-aunt of Virginia Woolf

Books and arts

6 September 2014 9:00 am

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The Indian lady at the chemist

4 September 2014 1:00 pm

I trust her look the shadow round her eyes her level stare explaining paracetamol these ones are strong take them…

Title Stories: A study in scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

4 September 2014 1:00 pm

The post Title Stories: A study in scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle appeared first on The Spectator. Got something…

The Indian lady at the chemist

4 September 2014 1:00 pm

I trust her look the shadow round her eyes her level stare explaining paracetamol these ones are strong take them…

Title Stories: A study in scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

4 September 2014 1:00 pm

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

A romanticised portrait of Goethe by J.H.W. Tischbein

Beautiful and damned

30 August 2014 9:00 am

For centuries hailed as the home of poetry, music and liberalism, Weimar was ruthlessly exploited by the Nazis and later served as a showcase for communism, says Philip Hensher

Suffering in silence

30 August 2014 9:00 am

A few years ago, after a lifetime of wearing white shirts through which the straps of my white bra were…