Chesterton’s homes
It’s a quiet Wednesday afternoon in Britain’s most expensive market town, and there’s a sense of foreboding in the air.…
Out of order
In his autobiography, John Bercow takes his peerage as a given. But that might be scuppered by accusations of bullying, says Lynn Barber
Escape into war
What compelled three well-known British writers to leave their homes and travel 6,000 miles to participate in a nasty late-19th-century…
Cooking up miracles
Georgina Landemare cooked for the Churchill family in all their kitchens, during the 1930s and 1940s. She got as close…
Crowning glories
When an American describes a woman as wearing a ‘Park Avenue Helmet’ you know exactly what is meant. This is…
A matter of detail
This is a very nuanced and subtle novel by Philip Hensher, which manages the highwire act of treating its characters…
Acting the part
Actress is the novel Anne Enright has been rehearsing since her first collection of stories, The Portable Virgin (1991). It…
He who dared
Of the many bleak moments that have lodged in my mind since reading this extraordinary book the most unshakeable is…
Homage to Pieter the great
There is a vogue at the moment for books which use art as a vehicle for examining the writer’s wider…
From the lake of dreams…
Kapka Kassabova’s previous travel book, Border, was rightly acclaimed and won several prizes. The author travelled to the edge of…
… to endless wakefulness
The insomniac may come to dread the night’s solitude, but the next day poses the greater challenge. That’s when you…
Lost in translation
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
Vol-au-vent horror
Not much was clear in the opening scenes of The Pale Horse (BBC1, Sunday), which even by current TV standards…
Family matters
History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…
Local hero
Blood Wedding, by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, is one of those heavyweight tragedies that risks looking a bit…
Wigging out
British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…
Fellatio-free
Calixto Bieito’s Carmen: three words to make an opera critic’s heart leap. Until quite recently, Bieito was the operatic provocateur…
Tinkerbell Regency
‘Too pretty,’ blithers Miss Bates in the Highbury haberdasher as she plucks at a silken tassel. ‘Too pretty’ goes for…
High Life
Gstaad Lenin Moreno is in trouble, despite his very unchristian first name. For any of you unfamiliar with the name,…
