Books
Relations with Europe provide the key to British postwar politics
Tom McTague shows how the two most consequential decisions for Britain over the past 80 years have been entering the European Union in 1973 and leaving it in 2020
The grand life writ small: a history of modern British aristocracy
Prewar, they thought their future was secure, but death duties and heavy taxation brought a huge change in circumstance – to which some have valiantly responded. Pen portraits of peers and historical perspective bring this tale of diminishment to vivid life
Music to some ears: how 20th-century classical music led to pop
You can easily draw a line from John Cage to Sonic Youth – but Elizabeth Aker’s book does not really tell you how
Dirty work: The Expansion Project, by Ben Pester, reviewed
A debut novel with echoes of Kafka, Flaubert and the office sitcom, this is a tale of one man’s days on the treadmill of life that is both poignant and disconcerting
No stone unturned: the art of communing with rocks
If a river can be considered a living thing, why not stones and rocks? They bear witness to thousands of years of history and have spoken to us long before the formation of language itself. We just need to learn to listen
The enduring miracle of human birth – a history
Everyone who has ever lived came out of a woman’s body – a fact even more extraordinary when narrow hips and large skulls mean the human form is hardly precision engineered for such a feat
Starry starry night: the return of the sleeper train
Slow travel is in vogue and with it the renaissance of the railways. And what better way to journey by night across borders in the company of strangers?
Clerical skulduggery on the far borders of 1830s Germany
The Barchester Chronicles it isn’t, but this short and lively account of one of history’s footnotes reminds us that the culture wars existed long before TikTok and Twitter
Christopher Marlowe, the spy who changed literature for ever
The 16th-century playwright led a violent, tempestuous and clandestine short life but alone among his contemporaries he speaks to us in a familiar way
Lives upended: TonyInterruptor, by Nicola Barker, reviewed
At an improvised jazz performance a man interrupts a trumpet solo asking: ‘Is this honest?’ The incident goes viral, prompting much comic argument about abstractions
The enigma of C.P. Cavafy
The homosexual poet from Alexandria avoided publication in his lifetime, despite being a ruthless self-promoter with a very high opinion of his own work
An ill wind: Helm, by Sarah Hall, reviewed
Hall’s protagonist in this extraordinary novel is Britain’s only named wind, a ferocious, mischievous beast that has been hitting Cumbria’s Eden Vale from time immemorial
Art and moralising don’t mix
Somewhat late in the day, Rosanna McLaughlin condemns the way art is now obliged to communicate clear and approvable messages, resulting in timid, defensive, rule-bound works
The greatest military folly of modern times
Kevin Passmore explains why the construction of the Maginot Line, France’s vast defensive network of the interwar years, proved such a failure
I actually feel sorry for Prince Andrew
Andrew Lownie’s minutely detailed account of the Duke of York’s disgrace and downfall achieves the near impossible
A summer romance: Six Weeks by the Sea, by Paula Byrne, reviewed
Byrne imagines the twentysomething Jane Austen, on holiday in Sidmouth, falling for the lawyer Samuel Rose – a perfect foil, being a cross between Mr Darcy and Mr Knightley
A sensory awakening: the adventures of a cheesemonger
The high-flying journalist Michael Finnerty takes a break in midlife to learn the art of cheesemaking in Borough Market – and finds himself fleeing a knife-wielding terrorist
‘My ghastly lonely life’ on the Costa Brava – Truman Capote
The small coastal town of Palamos left little impression on Capote while writing In Cold Blood there, so tracing his steps becomes a pointless exercise, as Leila Guerriero soon discovers
‘I’m tired of your ridiculous lies’ – the wrath of Muriel Spark
The novelist’s main targets were her hapless editors at Macmillan and her former lover Derek Stanford – recipients of many vituperative early letters
The woman I’m not – Nicola Sturgeon
Scotland’s former first minister spends most of her memoir telling us how different she is from her public image
Culture clash: Sympathy Tokyo Tower, by Rie Qudan, reviewed
Social, moral, architectural and linguistic problems collide in this gem of a novel set in lightly altered contemporary Tokyo
The enduring pathos of Wound Man
The medieval surgical diagram evolves over centuries into an internationally recognised image, offering a striking portrayal of human suffering, love of detail and medical knowledge
How can Gwyneth Paltrow bear so much ridicule?
The frail-looking movie star turns out to surprisingly thick-skinned as well as shrewd: a curious combination of entrepreneurial survivor and woo-woo artiste
Deception by stealth: the scammer’s long game
Swindled out of almost $100,000, Johnathan Walton warns of the insidious strategies lasting years of the really determined con artist
Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip?
Sarah Ditum 6 September 2025 9:00 am
When oversharing – and even inventing – stories of personal trauma is considered ‘validating’ and laudable we are in real trouble, says Darren McGarvey, speaking from experience