Books
Bony horsemen and miller’s thumbs
Despite its many centuries of popularity – enthusiasts have ranged from Cleopatra to Eric Clapton – angling has been the…
Braggart and bully
Brawling, boozing and womanising, those vaunted hell-raisers of the 1960s – Peter O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton and, of course,…
A calm authority
In Keep Talking, David Dimbleby takes us through a gentle romp of a stellar, unrivalled broadcasting career spanning, incredibly, 70…
The unseeing eye
Stefan Hertmans is dismayed to discover that his home was once owned by a Flemish collaborator with the SS
The making of a masterpiece
But does Matthew Hollis understand the poem as well he understands the manual action of a Corona?
This misbegotten war
Putin’s new army looked lean and mean, but old, inherent weaknesses persisted: over-rigid commanders, demoralised soldiers and shaky logistics
Ghouls, goblins and curmudgeons
There are wolves, bats, 101 dogs and Maggie O’Farrell’s Nouka – an adorable black ball of fluff with big green eyes
Not such a rotten borough
Her attack on the council’s record under Conservative leadership betrays her failure to grasp the fundamentals of local government finance
Tricks of the trade
Tony Tetro fooled many connoisseurs with his canvases – aged by mixing coffee and cigarette butts or baking them in a pizza oven
More tales of Tinseltown
If the early days lacked glamour, they certainly provided the best anecdotes, according to a new oral history
Not camping out
As is the case with one of my favourite Australian writers and playwrights, Louis Nowra, Sydney is also my adopted…
See Naples and live
Hazzard’s spiritual awakening on reading Leopardi’s poems and first seeing the Bay of Naples led to a lifelong passion for her adopted country
Glorious ruins
Oliver Smith takes us on a tour of train graveyards, bunkers, ghost towns, crumbling palaces – and a 7,000-bedroom hotel in North Korea that never even opened
Hotel of horror
A teenage maid goes missing after a party of men arrive at a lonely alpine hotel for a sinister carnival feast
The nation’s attack dogs
Mark Urban describes the remarkable feats of the parachute regiment created under Churchill’s orders in June 1940 to rival the Fallschirmjäger
The eye of the beholder
Other artists include James Gillray, Quentin Blake, Lucian Freud – and those inspired over the centuries by an overlooked subject in art history: the egg
Storm clouds brewing
Spanning the 18th and 19th centuries, Gardner’s novel tells the story of young Neva, whose ability to predict the weather nearly ruins her
The man who knew everyone
The New York socialite devoted much of his time to saving wild life in Kenya – though a new biography ignores some of his less reputable views
The path to power
Robert Skidelsky follows Friedrich Hayek’s progression from technical economics to political thinking after his battles with John Maynard Keynes
Old wine in new wineskins
With 7,000 living languages now in the world, there are countless pitfalls for translators, as John Barton demonstrates
Disparate tribes
There is no single community, Harry Freedman stresses, but a multitude of voices ranging from the liberal to the ultra-orthodox
Weeping and laughter
Mrs Yi is a folk healer in a remote Chinese village where the living commune with the dead and rocks relay warning messages
Making waves
Lily Le Brun explores our shifting relationship with the shoreline through works by Vanessa Bell, Paul Nash, Bridget Riley and other modernists
Deadlier than the male
There are hard-hitting thrillers from Margie Orford and Rijula Das – as well as an engaging mystery by Erri de Luca
A kingdom of the mind
When an Irish shipbuilder’s son was crowned king of a Caribbean rock in 1880, few would have guessed how long this eccentric monarchy would last
