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April
Spring again But from where no telling Sweet as the spring That went before…
April
Spring again But from where no telling Sweet as the spring That went before…
A champion of liberal reform
Roy Jenkins may have been snobbish and self-indulgent, but he was also a visionary and man of principle who would have made a good prime minister, says Philip Ziegler
The sound of nervous laughter
It isn’t very often that a writer’s work is so striking that you can remember exactly where and when you…
Paving the road to hell
When presented with a 639-page doorstopper which includes 82 pages of closely-written sources, notes and index, most of us feel…
Main currents of history
The clue is in the title: this is not about the blue-grey-green wet stuff that covers 70 per cent of…
How many times have I told you?
As a sign of the way things have changed, nothing could better this. Hester Vaizey, Cambridge history don and ‘publishing…
Directing the war effort
John Ford was the first of the five famous Hollywood film directors to go to war. He went expecting to…
With death came glory
Eschewing the biblical advertising of ‘the promised land’ or indeed ‘a land of milk and honey’, the Conservative colonial secretary…
Put your lips together and blow
Paul McCartney says he can remember the exact moment he knew the Beatles had made it. Early one morning, getting…
Books and Arts
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Hero and villain
There is a story told of Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister speaking with his Treasurer, Bill Hayden. It is late…
‘Tell it not in the future’
Sam Leith finds the most sacred site of Ancient Greece still a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Who knows wins
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…
In Fleet Street’s fast lane
In her early days on Fleet Street, Mary Kenny, as she herself admits, was cast as ‘the wild Irish girl’,…
Round and round the garden, again
Here’s a book co-authored by one dead woman and one living one. Sarah Raven is the second wife of Adam…
Those little grey cells in operation
In the first sentence of the first chapter of this book, Henry Marsh, a consultant brain surgeon, says, ‘I often…
The mask of truth
Siri Hustvedt’s new novel isn’t exactly an easy read — but the casual bookshop browser should be reassured that it’s…
Small wars in academe
It’s a misleading title, because there is nothing unexpected about Professor Carey, in any sense. He doesn’t turn up to…
In deep water
Karl Ove Knausgaard was eight months old when his family moved to the island of Tromøya; he left it aged…
They do it with mirrors
If ever there was a time to write a book about self-portraits, this must be it. ‘Past interest in the…
Cracking up
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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