Books
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
Jack all alone
Ten years ago, a determined historian transformed our picture of John F. Kennedy. Robert Dallek had finally got his hands…
Criminal damage
Anyone with a passing interest in old British buildings must get angry at the horrors inflicted on our town centres…
Evil under the sun
At the dark heart of this dark book is a startling fact: Joseph Conrad was employed to steam up the…
Worshipping from afar
In this travelogue, Matthew Baylis, the novelist and TV critic and former Eastenders screenwriter, goes to Tanna, a Melanesian island,…
Seeing double
The game that Charles Saatchi plays in The Naked Eye is to find photographs of subjects that look surprisingly like…
The long and winding road
If you have read Iain Sinclair’s books you will know that he is a stylist with a love of language.…
A choice of cookery books
Nigel Slater’s books lead the field in cookery book design, but his latest, Eat: The Little Book of Fast Food…
Violence was his vocation
Heroically brave and mad, prodigious in his industry and appetites, Norman Mailer was an altogether excessive figure. Since his death…
Past perfect
Some years ago, a woman wrote to Dear Mary, at the back of this periodical, with an unusual problem: she…
Pirates on parade
Hear the word ‘pirate’ and what picture springs to your mind? I see a richly-bearded geezer in a tricorne hat…
The manager, not the man
For a quarter of a century Sir Alex Ferguson bestrode football’s narrow world like a colossus. Like his predecessor knight-manager,…
