Books
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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Answers to ‘Spot the Play Title’
1. Cat Honour Hot Tin Roof 2. Frank Hen Stein 3. Ark A Deer 4. Hammer Day S 5. Hiss…
Powerful punch lines
Vernon Scannell was a thief, a liar, a deserter, a bigamist, a fraud, an alcoholic, a woman-beater and a coward.…
A Yorkshire Christmas Eve
His nearby town wore annual evening-dress, cheap jewellery of lights, white fur and bright drapes of Santa red which might…
A dogged opportunist
Of a dashing political rival, François Mitterrand once remarked: He was more intelligent than I was, he thought faster than…
Strands of Scottish history
A couple of years ago, while tracking down paintings for the Public Catalogue Foundation in the far north of Scotland,…
Always keep a-hold of Nurse…
Soon after moving to London at the age of 20, Nina Stibbe wrote to her sister Vic saying, ‘Being a…
The President and the muckrakers
Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era are well-worn subjects for both professional and amateur historians, so it’s pertinent to ask…
A Herculean achievement
Early on in this dazzling new biography, Martin Gayford compares Michelangelo, with his daunting artistic tasks, to Hercules, the subject…
The Price of Fame
Try not to meet us in the flesh We’ll disappoint you if you do, Our dandruff and our garlic breath…
Dutch courage in the trenches
‘You have no idea,’ wrote the publisher Ralph Hodder-Williams in 1929 to one of his authors, what terrible offence Journey’s…
The making of the myth
Writing about Napoleon is a risky business. It exposes the author to the brickbats of the blind worshippers for whom…
Ho, ho, oh no
In January 1976 New York’s late-lamented National Lampoon produced a bicentennial calendar as a contribution to the general rejoicing. For…
Beginning at the end
For much of its history the Danube has been a disappointment. It looks so tempting on the map but, far…
As grand as the Grand Canyon itself
This book begins with Simon Winchester becoming a US citizen two years ago: ‘I swore a solemn oath before a…
The Pleasure’s All Mine, by Julie Peakman – review
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