Books
Words, words, words
Sam Leith reviews the reviews of David Lodge — and wonders where it will all end
More blood and mud
Countless writers and film-makers this year will be trying their hand at forcing us to wake up and smell the…
His soul goes marching on
James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird is set in the mid 19th century, and is based on the real life…
Myths of the modern-day pharoahs
Jonathan Rugman is foreign affairs correspondent for Channel 4 News.
Let the elves do the work
As I sit here in my Sarah Lund Fair Isle sweater, polishing my boxed sets of Borgen and nibbling on…
On Lambeth Bridge
I am halfway across a bridge and midway through my life, staring at the midday sun. How I love politics!…
Addicted to gambling and reform
A book about one of the London clubs, published to mark its 250th anniversary, might be regarded as of extremely…
Trampling out the vintage
John Steinbeck (1902–1968), an ardent propagandist for the exploited underdogs of the Great Depression, had barely enough money for subsistence…
Write what you know
Adam Foulds’s latest novel is less successful than its predecessor. In 2009 he reached the Booker shortlist with The Quickening…
Too sharp by half
It is six years since Hanif Kureishi’s last novel Something to Tell You, a kaleidoscopic meditation on life and death…
The perils of partition
John Keay’s excellent new book on the modern history of South Asia plunges the reader head first into some wildly…
Our founding father
Founding fathers of proud nations are venerated. From an early age, children learn about their achievements and sacrifices. A King…
On Lambeth Bridge
I am halfway across a bridge and midway through my life, staring at the midday sun. How I love politics!…
On Lambeth Bridge
I am halfway across a bridge and midway through my life, staring at the midday sun. How I love politics!…
Books and Arts
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Playing fast and loose
Simon Blow recalls the wealth, recklessness and beauty of his family’s better days
Into the valley of death
John Williams’s brilliant 1965 novel, Stoner, was republished last year by Vintage to just, if surprisingly widespread, acclaim and went…
An awful warning
During Japan’s lost decade in the 1990s I found myself handing out rice balls to Tokyo’s homeless on the banks…
Tortured genius
Among the clever young Australians who came over here in the 1960s to find themselves and make their mark, a…
A dangerous heroine addiction
This book arose from an argument. Lifelong bookworm Samantha Ellis and her best friend had gone to Brontë country and…
A don delights
The arrival of a letter from Hugh Trevor-Roper initiated a whole series of pleasures. Pleasure began with the very look…
The curiosity in the cabinet
John Biffen was mentally ill. This is the outstanding revelation of Semi-Detached, a memoir which has been assembled from his…
At Kew
To Occupation Road again, a whole year nearer my own retirement now. The track slopes down past the Record Office…
At home with the Bloomsberries
Above the range in the kitchen at Charleston House is a painted inscription: ‘Grace Higgens worked here for 50 years…
Sound military history
Scott Fitzgerald once made the famous observation that there are no second acts in American life. Perhaps. But Mike Carlton…
