Books
The National Theatre Story by Daniel Rosenthal - review
In 1976, as the National Theatre moved into its new home on London’s South Bank, its literary manager Kenneth Tynan…
Dayshifts
The Man in the Moon will come on Tuesday. He will wear his grey hat and be travelling alone. Take…
Shostakovich, Leningrad, and the greatest story ever played
The horrors of the Leningrad siege — the 900 Days of Harrison Salisbury’s classic — have been pretty well picked…
Critics can be creative - look at Malcolm Cowley
Even Spectator book reviewers have to concede that their craft is inferior to the creative travail of authors. Henry James…
John Bellany: potent, prolific, patchy
When John Bellany died in August last year, an odyssey that had alternately beguiled and infuriated the art world came…
Books and Arts
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The persecution of Cory
Cory Bernardi’s book is a reminder of the traditional values that made Australia and inspired earlier generations to fight for…
Dayshifts
The Man in the Moon will come on Tuesday. He will wear his grey hat and be travelling alone. Take…
Dayshifts
The Man in the Moon will come on Tuesday. He will wear his grey hat and be travelling alone. Take…
How we lost the seasons
... for tomorrow traditional seasonal rituals may just be ghostly memories of a vanished world, says Melanie McDonagh
The Roth of tenderness and of rage
In the autumn of 2012, Philip Roth told a French magazine that his latest book, Nemesis, would be his last.…
Forgiveness
The bunting was hardly down, and the bones of the feast hardly buried in sand, when the prodigal son started…
Do Manet's asparagus remind you of your struggling long-term relationship?
In calling their book Art as Therapy Alain de Botton and John Armstrong have taken the direct route. They’re not…
Finally, a celebrity memoir worth reading
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
The many attempts to assassinate Trotsky
Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…
An utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel
This utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel is something from another age. There are elements of A Handful of Dust…
The food of love
The Albek Duo are two astonishingly beautiful and talented Venetian musicians, Fiona and Ambra, who are identical twins. Hearing the…
Our colourful stories
That’s girt by sea, as in the national anthem. As a title, it fits the overall tone of the book,…
Books and Arts
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How honest was Bernard Berenson?
Sam Leith suspects that even such a distinguished connoisseur as Bernard Berenson did not always play a straight bat
Secrets of the Kremlin
A building bearing testimony to the power of eternal Russia; a timeless symbol of the Russian state; a monument to…
In defence of Herodotus
How many writers would give their eye teeth to have a book reissued 2,500 years after their death? It certainly…
Spot the play title
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Answers to ‘Spot the Play Title’
1. Cat Honour Hot Tin Roof 2. Frank Hen Stein 3. Ark A Deer 4. Hammer Day S 5. Hiss…
Deserter, wifebeater, great poet: the shame and glory of Vernon Scannell
Vernon Scannell was a thief, a liar, a deserter, a bigamist, a fraud, an alcoholic, a woman-beater and a coward.…
