Books
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
A portrait of alienation: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai, reviewed
Two lovers from wealthy families in Allahabad contend with powerful forces of ambition, corruption, neighbouring feuds and sexual violence
Even now, Nick Clegg offers too little too late
In contrast to Sarah Wynn-Williams’s tell-all memoir of life at Facebook published earlier this year, Clegg’s ponderous account of his time at Meta is barely a tell-anything
The mystery of Rapa Nui’s moai may be solved
The vast, painstakingly carved stone figures are thought to represent ancestors – and their partial destruction to signify punishment for their failure as guardians
Is China riding for a fall?
Dan Wang contrasts the dynamism of China’s physical engineering programme with the madness of its social engineering – the one-child policy threatening to prove a demographic disaster
My husband first and last – by Lalla Romano
In a touching memoir, Romano describes a shared intellectual life with Innocenzo Monti, from their first meeting in the Piedmont mountains to their final months together
The short, restless life of Robert Louis Stevenson
The frail but hugely successful writer broke away from his Presbyterian roots to pursue a life of travel before finally settling with his wife in remote Samoa
The concept of ‘the West’ seems to mean anything you like
First formulated by Auguste Comte in the 19th century, its later proponents would even embrace Japan while questioning the inclusion of belligerent Germany
What has the reparations movement ever done for victims of modern slavery?
Until now it has focused on extracting trillions from European governments in compensation for historic crimes while ignoring horrors still being perpetrated today
A simple life fraught with difficulties: Ruth, by Kate Riley, reviewed
The eponymous protagonist struggles against the strictures of her Anabaptist upbringing whereby women cook, clean and police each other’s morals
Exploring the enchanted gardens of literature
Sandra Lawrence transports us to the gnarled yews of Tom’s Midnight Garden, the scent of azaleas at Manderley and the Pillow Book’s chrysanthemums glistening with dew
The joyless rants of Andrea Long Chu
The critic’s modishly provocative takedowns of successful contemporary writers, signed off with vapid aphorisms, make for dispiriting rather than stimulating reading
Sebastian Faulks looks back on youth and lost idealism
The novelist describes key moments in his life from boarding school onwards in essays originally intended to discuss ‘the things that have meant the most to me’
Courage and humour in the face of unimaginable grief
Miriam Toews meditates on suicide, silence and the messiness of survival as she attempts to answer the question: ‘Why Do I Write’?
Art and radicalism in 1930s Britain
Andy Friend describes the first decade of the AIA, a vital movement that blended art and politics in the fight against international fascism
Horoscopes and horror – the reign of Septimius Severus
Notoriously brutal and superstitious, Rome’s first African emperor was responsible for killing of his rivals on an unprecedented scale as well as genocide against the Scots
On the trail of a missing masterpiece: What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
In the archipelago-republic of 22nd-century Britain, a literary scholar becomes obsessed with a long-vanished sonnet sequence and the woman who inspired it
Ignorance, madness or folly – what exactly constitutes stupidity?
In a picturesque ramble through world civilisation, Stuart Jeffries proposes some answers
Alchemy – the ultimate fool’s errand
Secretive, expensive and doomed to failure, the business of turning base metal to gold nevertheless occupied scholars for centuries
