Books
Hero and villain
There is a story told of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister speaking with his Treasurer, Bill Hayden. It is late…
Management consultancy! Sculpture park! Sports stadium! The many faces of the Delphic Oracle
Sam Leith finds the most sacred site of Ancient Greece still a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
‘A public urinal where ministers and officials queued up to leak’
Anyone brought up as I was in a Daily Express household in the 1950s — there were approaching 11 million…
Småland
Småland’s wooden cottages with sunflowers lack nothing. Brightly-painted, small in the distance like stories, they call the eye on and…
Fleet Street’s ‘wild Irish girl’
In her early days on Fleet Street, Mary Kenny, as she herself admits, was cast as ‘the wild Irish girl’,…
Recycling Sackville-West style
Here’s a book co-authored by one dead woman and one living one. Sarah Raven is the second wife of Adam…
The thrill of cutting into a human brain
In the first sentence of the first chapter of this book, Henry Marsh, a consultant brain surgeon, says, ‘I often…
Caught between a New Age rock and a theory junkie hard place
Siri Hustvedt’s new novel isn’t exactly an easy read — but the casual bookshop browser should be reassured that it’s…
Memoirs of an academic brawler
It’s a misleading title, because there is nothing unexpected about Professor Carey, in any sense. He doesn’t turn up to…
The making of a novelist
Karl Ove Knausgaard was eight months old when his family moved to the island of Tromøya; he left it aged…
The selfie from Akhenaten to Tracey Emin
If ever there was a time to write a book about self-portraits, this must be it. ‘Past interest in the…
The talent and tragedy of Richard Pryor
The troubles of Richard Pryor’s life are well known — from his childhood in a brothel to his self-immolation via…
Books and Arts
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Cracking up
The troubles of Richard Pryor’s life are well known — from his childhood in a brothel to his self-immolation via…
Småland
Småland’s wooden cottages with sunflowers lack nothing. Brightly-painted, small in the distance like stories, they call the eye on and…
Cracking up
The troubles of Richard Pryor’s life are well known — from his childhood in a brothel to his self-immolation via…
Småland
Småland’s wooden cottages with sunflowers lack nothing. Brightly-painted, small in the distance like stories, they call the eye on and…
Lawlessness, corruption, poverty and pollution: the city where we're all headed
India’s vast polluted capital, where brutality, corruption and ruthless self-seeking are endemic, could be the blueprint of the future, says Peter Parker
Can anyone make a good case for the Stuart kings?
Historians have generally not been kind in their assessment of Britain’s first two Stuart kings. Their political skills are regarded…
Gay Paree: food, feuds and phalluses – I mean, fallacies
In his preface to The Joy of Gay Sex (revised and expanded third edition), Edmund White praises the ‘kinkier’ aspects…
Madness and massacre in the jungle
In his new novel, Children of Paradise, Fred D’Aguiar, a British-Guyanese writer, returns to the Jonestown massacre, previously the subject…
What other job lets you swear in front of your parents?
There aren’t many jobs that allow a nice middle-class Jewish boy to say ‘fuck’ in front of his parents. But…
A master craftsman of the anecdote
One of the many charms of this book is its sheer unexpectedness, which makes it hard to review, for to…
Queen Victoria with the naughty bits put back
Queen Victoria was the inventor of official royal biography. It was she who commissioned the monumental five-volume life of Prince…
The harrowing, inspiring life of Andrew Sachs
Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative…
