Books
Dressing the word salad
We owe the ghostwriter of this book a debt of gratitude. A novelist called Geraldine Brooks is cited as a…
Justin Currie’s truly remarkable rock memoir
Aged 58, and suffering from Parkinson’s, Del Amitri’s chief songwriter never loses his sense of humour as he treks across America, playing in cowsheds, state fairs and parking lots
Will Israel always have America’s backing?
The views of today’s young Americans should concern Israelis, says Marc Lynch. With no memory of Israel’s foundations in 1948, they are considerably more pro-Palestinian than their parents
The radical power of sentimentality
Ferdinand Mount identifies three distinct sentimental revolutions – in the 11th, 18th and 20th centuries – that transformed legal frameworks and social structures as well as hearts and minds
The gay rights movement threatens to implode
Tolerance pushed too far by LGBTQ+ demands may soon turn to intolerance, and legislation can be rolled back in the blink of an eye, warns Ronan McCrea
A literary Russian doll: The Tower, by Thea Lenarduzzi, reviewed
The closer we get to the mystery of Annie, a 19th-century consumptive locked up in a tower by her wealthy father, the more we are lost in other stories within stories
The traitor who gives Downing Street a bad name
Even by 17th-century standards, George Downing’s duplicity in serving both Oliver Cromell and Charles II was exceptional and set new standards for unscrupulousness
A death sentence for Afghanistan’s women judges
Threatened with beheading by the Taliban in 2021, some judges managed to flee the country. But many remain in hiding, having destroyed all evidence of their qualifications
Robin Holloway lambasts some of our most beloved composers
Works by Strauss, Holst, Rossini, Schoenberg and Wagner are all targeted, while Hildegard of Bingen’s music is pronounced a ‘psychedelic bore’
Death and glory: the politics of the World Cup
The choice of ‘tiny boiling Qatar’ as a venue in 2022 – where thousands of construction workers lost their lives – typifies Fifa’s cynical favour-auctioning, says Simon Kuper
The vanished glamour of New York nightlife
Booze, coke, models, parties… Mark Ronson’s vivid account of DJing in the 1990s is a celebration of a lost world
An unheroic hero: Ginster, by Siegfried Kracauer, reviewed
When Kracauer’s protagonist is finally conscripted in the first world war, he starves himself to ‘general physical debility’ and is sent to ‘peel potatoes against the foe’
Stray shells and suicide bombers in Kabul’s finest hotel
Lyse Doucet describes how the Intercontinental, the journalists’ refuge for decades, is increasingly targeted by the Taliban as they gain control in Afghanistan
Auschwitz-themed novels are cheapening the Holocaust
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has spawned a host of deathcamp dramas that trivialise the Jewish tragedy, says Tanya Gold
Hell is other tourists in Antarctica
If you’ve longed to see every penguin species in the world, think about the company you’ll be keeping, warns Jamie Lafferty
Since when did the English love to queue?
Far from being an ancient trait, the ‘irksome novelty’ dates from 1939, according to Graham Robb – whose idiosyncratic history of Britain corrects many erroneous beliefs
How Charles III became the richest monarch in modern history
Valentine Low describes the financial deals struck by the Windsors with successive politicians in exchange for relinquishing political power
Is it possible to retain one’s dignity in the face of annihilation?
Lea Ypi’s moving account of her family’s experiences in 20th-century Albania addresses this and other questions involving freedom and the human spirit
Centuries of cross-currents between Christianity and Islam
Elizabeth Drayson celebrates a long and fruitful exchange of views about the arts, sciences, literature and mathematics
Nostalgia for snooker’s glory days
David Hendon recalls a time when the relative merits of Jimmy White, Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor were discussed in pubs and football wasn’t mentioned at all
Honeymoon from hell: Venetian Vespers, by John Banville, reviewed
A fin-de-siècle hack marries the daughter of wealthy oil baron but soon begins to wonder what he’s let himself in for
Hiding from the Nazis in wartime Italy
Malcolm Gaskill vividly recreates his uncle’s experience as an escaped PoW, and the courage of the peasant families who risked their lives to shelter him
Dark secrets of the British housewife
Juliet Nicolson reminds us of how difficult it was, even in the 1960s, for women to admit to sexual frustration, abuse, extramarital affairs or alcoholism
The young Tennyson reaches for the stars
Richard Holmes describes how the poet’s early fascination with science – astronomy and geology in particular – would have a lasting influence on his writing
Why would your dead daughter climb out of her grave to harm you?
John Blair investigates the bizarre phenomenon of ‘corpse-killing’, and the fear in 19th-century New England that children, post mortem, were under demonic control
