Books
A boy on a bicycle
In Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666, the efforts of an academic claque propel the mysterious German author Benno von Archimboldi onto…
We were not amused
Princess Louise (1848–1939), Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter, was the prettiest and liveliest of the five princesses, and the only one…
One drama after another
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…
The magnificent Seventh
The horrors of the Leningrad siege — the 900 Days of Harrison Salisbury’s classic — have been pretty well picked…
Elder statesman of the Republic of Letters
Even Spectator book reviewers have to concede that their craft is inferior to the creative travail of authors. Henry James…
Great Scot
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…
Eat, drink and be merry…
... for tomorrow traditional seasonal rituals may just be ghostly memories of a vanished world, says Melanie McDonagh
Between tenderness and 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…
The healing art
In calling their book Art as Therapy Alain de Botton and John Armstrong have taken the direct route. They’re not…
Blazing saddles
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
Reds under the beds
Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…
A comedy of manners
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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Aesthete and huckster
Sam Leith suspects that even such a distinguished connoisseur as Bernard Berenson did not always play a straight bat
Hiding in plain sight
A building bearing testimony to the power of eternal Russia; a timeless symbol of the Russian state; a monument to…
A treasure-trove of wonders
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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