Books
Here’s looking at you, kid
Many of us, I get the feeling, don’t go and see as many films as we used to, or want…
A choice of art books
Good news for the festive season — the inexorable rise of the virtual image on our computer screens, tablets, and…
The maiden aunt of modernism
Marianne Moore’s poems are notoriously ‘difficult’ but her personality and the circumstances of her life are as fascinating today as…
Getting the claws out
The New Yorker has always had a peculiar affinity with cats, perhaps because they have a lot in common —…
Who’s up, who’s down
‘Nothing’s funny any more’ has become the daily mantra of this magazine’s cartoon editor, Michael Heath. Thanks to Leveson, political…
No place for sissies
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a story for the older reader. One might go so far as to suggest…
Hannah and her sisters
In Cooking People Sophia Waugh describes, with dash and wit, the personalities of five important women cookery writers: two Hannahs…
The wrong side of the barricade
Historians still argue over whether the regime of the GDR can be called a totalitarian one. Some say that the…
In the steppes of a warlord
Joanna Kavenna is impressed by one man’s 6,000-mile ride through some of the loneliest regions on earth
Unconditional love
Halfway through her new novel, Margaret Drabble tells us of Anna, the pure gold baby of the title, ‘There was…
The monster in our midst
Do you love Amazon? I have to admit that I do, and that I buy books from it far more…
Boundless blessings
Ann Patchett’s novels revel in the tightly constructed ecosystems imagined for their characters: an opera singer besieged among diplomats in…
A choice of children’s books
Animal stories for children are always tricky; as J.R.R. Tolkien observed in his essay on fairy stories, you can end…
A certain way with words
In the reminiscences of Bertie Wooster we find this: As I sat in the bathtub, soaping a meditative foot and…
Homage to Elizabeth the first
‘She wrote fiction?’ Even today, with the admirable ladies at Virago nearly finished reissuing her dozen novels, Elizabeth Taylor remains…
Cubism domesticated
Over the past 45 years, there have been two distinct and divergent approaches to Art Deco. One of them —…
Gossip, gossip from all the nations
Under normal circumstances, Simon Garfield’s chatty and informative excursion into the history of letter-writing would be a book to recommend.…
Images that glow in the mind
In 1983, Damien Hirst saw an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of the collages of Francis Davison which ‘blew him…
A choice of crime fiction
Pity the poor novelist whom commercial pressures trap within a series, doomed with each volume to diminish the stock of…
Fun and games at Glin
I have to declare an interest: for many years the Knight and I were the closest of friends until a…
A shaggy dog story
Books become films every day of the week; more rarely does someone feel inspired to write a book after seeing…
Books and Arts
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The way it was
There is a test in Canberra which applies to the quality of political commentary. It is called the ‘Blue Poles’…
Books and Arts
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Books of the Year
More recommended reading from some of our regular reviewers
