Books
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
Wry observations in a jolly good read
For a Justice of the High Court of Australia – even a retired one – publication in any genre is…
There’s something about Marianne – but can French identity be defined?
The Parisian public belongs to ‘all classes and creeds’, yet the sounds, smells and street furniture remain unmistakably French, says Andrew Hussey
Will we resist the bacteria of the future?
Due to the chronic overuse of antibiotics, the proliferation of certain impervious strains now represents one of the world’s most urgent health threats
Whitehall farce: Clown Town, by Mick Herron, reviewed
The implication of a senior government figure in murky dealings during the Troubles presents new problems for Jackson Lamb and his Slow Horses
The word ‘artisanal’ has lost its meaning and dignity
The proud, skilled crafts it once described, such as thatching and coppicing, were part of life’s necessities – unlike the ‘handmade’ candles, chutneys and chocolates we now associate with it
The ‘idiot Disneyland’ of Sin City
With his marriage to Joan Didion in difficulties, John Gregory Dunne decamps to Nevada in the early 1970s to capture the dying days of Vegas sleaze
Hell is other academics: Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang, reviewed
A postgraduate student of ‘Analytic Magick’ must rescue the soul of her thesis supervisor from campus hell or risk being stuck in academic limbo on Earth
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
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