Books
Cat on hot bricks
The name ‘Carré’ immediately evokes the shadowy world of espionage. Ironically, however, few people today have heard of the real…
‘A second-class racism’
The comic David Baddiel has written a book which explains that much of the far left hates Jews. There are…
Black mischief
In the cloud-capped highlands of Rwanda, even the rain-makers sound like crashing snobs. When two teenage pupils from Our Lady…
The first industrial war
This book does not mess about. It tells the story of the fighting on the Western Front between 1914 and…
Five intrepid women
I was first sent a version of Undreamed Shores: The Hidden Heroines of British Anthropology in June last year. I…
From temples to labyrinths
At a certain point, the critic Robert Hughes once noted, at the heart of American cities churches began to be…
Stark, intense honesty
Philip Roth was prepared to stare the soul resolutely in the face – and for that he can be forgiven most things, says David Baddiel
New-found freedom
In 2018 David Hockney went to Normandy to look at the Bayeux Tapestry, which he had not seen for more…
Man about the house
I have enjoyed many of Alan Warner’s previous novels, so it gives me no pleasure to report that his new…
A washing of hands
In 1866, the Russian historian Alexander Popov made an astonishing discovery. Leafing through a Renaissance Slavonic translation of the first-century…
A passion for pots
The use of ‘Ceramic’ rather than ‘Ceramics’ in the title of this book indicates Paul Greenhalgh’s passionate belief that ‘ceramic…
Small things misbehaving
Helgoland is a craggy German island in the North Sea. Barely bigger than a few fields, it reaches high above…
Nag, nag, nag
What an awful title. Something we hacks are forever saying (along with ‘Make mine a double’ and ‘Is it still…
Cycle of pain
Suffering from post-traumatic stress and the effects of government austerity measures, Paul Jones resigned as the head of an inner-city…
The Mean One
We have all become Paul Kagame’s useful idiots, says Nicholas Shakespeare
Celebrity gangster
Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel was about as meta-gangsterish as a real life gangster could get. Born in the slums of Manhattan’s…
One who got away
Hella Pick is one of that vanishing generation of Jewish refugees who arrived in Britain on the eve of the…
The beauty of the ampersand
This is such a great idea: a book with one short essay per punctuation mark or typographical symbol. Of course,…
Weighty matters
This is a novel about ‘mommy issues’. Rachel is a Reform Jew, ‘more Chanel bag Jew than Torah Jew’, and…
Escape from reality
Ewan Morrison is an intellectually nimble writer with a penchant for provocation. His work has included the novels, Distance, Ménage…
Holiday retreats
It was the 13th-century wall of a ruined Cistercian nunnery at the far end of her garden in Norfolk that…
Swimming with piranhas
‘What job do you want here?’ asked the editor of Vogue, interviewing a young hopeful. From behind her black sunglasses…
A collection of warring tribes
In his history of the Pacific War, Eagle Against the Sun, Ronald Spector described the state of the US army…
Inherited trauma
Okinawa is having a moment. Recently a Telegraph travel destination, to many in the west it’s still unfamiliar except as…
Slanging match
I’ve tried hard to think of someone I dislike enough to recommend this novel to, but have failed. Elfriede Jelinek…
