Books
Seduction made easy
Spectator readers need no introduction to Peter Jones. His Ancient and Modern column has instructed and delighted us for many…
Recent crime fiction
No Exit Press is not a large publisher but it has the knack of choosing exceptionally interesting crime fiction. Brother…
Reading a face
Do you think you can tell things about writers from the way they look in a painting or photograph? A…
Manners for beginners
Sandi Toksvig, as this book’s cover declares, ‘makes Stephen Fry look like a layabout’. The broadcaster, author, comedian, actress and…
The baby and the bathwater
Mrs Christabel Russell, the heroine of Bevis Hillier’s sparkling book, was a very modern young woman. She had short blonde…
A selection of humorous books
Books do furnish a room, and quirky books for Christmas do furnish an enormous warehouse somewhere within easy reach of…
A touch of Frost
Is there any such thing as abstract art? Narratives and coherent harmonies seem to me always to emerge from the…
The Welsh Chekhov
Rhys Davies was a Welsh writer in English who lived most of his life in London, that Tir na nÓg…
Squires, spires and serenity
I don’t know whether Bruce Bailey, a proud Northamptonshire man, agrees with the late Sir Nikolaus Pevsner that no one…
The thrill of the chase
Charles Palliser’s debut novel The Quincunx appeared as far back as 1989. Lavish and labyrinthine, this shifted nigh on a…
Market values
After reading Portobello Voices, I feel more strongly than ever that the unique Portobello market mustn’t be allowed to close.…
A rogues’ gallery
Hands up Spectator readers who can remember the American celebrities Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Jack Dempsey, Zane Grey,…
Cantons and Cantonese
In 1863, the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook took a group of British tourists on the first package holiday to…
The little voice
Of all the sights of Australia’s long phase of cricket dominance, none was quite so characteristic as Ricky Ponting emerging…
Cantons and Cantonese
In 1863, the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook took a group of British tourists on the first package holiday to…
Cantons and Cantonese
In 1863, the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook took a group of British tourists on the first package holiday to…
Beating Boney
We are accustomed to the thrill and glamour of the grands tableaux, but a nuts-and-bolts study of Napoleonic warfare makes for equally gripping reading, says David Crane
Paradise lost
Black Sheep opens biblically, with a mining village named Mount of Zeal, which is ‘built in a bowl like an…
All together now
The Great War involved the civilian population like no previous conflict. ‘Men, women and children, factory, workshop and army —…
Garden of earthly delights
It was Hazlitt who said of Hogarth that his pictures ‘breathe a certain close, greasy, tavern air’, and the same…
The imitable Jeeves
For as long as I can remember — I take neither pleasure nor pride in the admission — I have…
Dancing to a different tune
Carlos Acosta, the greatest dancer of his generation, grew up in Havana as the youngest of 11 black children. Money…
Winning through
‘Experiences aren’t given us to be “got over”, otherwise they would hardly be experiences.’ The opening sentence of the first…
Off the beaten track
This is probably not a book for those whose interest in Spain gravitates towards such contemporary phenomena as the films…
Books and Arts
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