Demography has become the biggest story on the planet
One of my vanities is that all my novels are different. Yet one astute journalist identified a universal thread: ‘Too…
The end of the world is nigh: the latest short stories reviewed
Only Helen DeWitt would start a book with an epigraph of her own pop-culture mash-up poetry and end with an…
Kazakhstan is about the size of Europe — but we know almost nothing about it
Kazakhstan, say signs by the side of the road in this vast Central Asian country, is ‘a land of unity…
Our public schools now resemble five-star hotels — with a Russian and Asian clientele
Deplore it or revere it, you cannot but respect the private school industry’s wart-like survival in modern Britain. Has any…
The Australian James Joyce: the novels of Gerald Murnane reviewed
Gerald Murnane is the kind of writer literary critics adore. His novels have little in the way of plot or…
Where would we be without crime’s heavies? Muscle, by Alan Trotter, reviewed
Let’s hear it for the heavies, the unsung heroes of noir crime fiction on page and screen. The genre would…
Spinning yarns: uplifting stories told through needlework
In this unusual book, part memoir, part history, Clare Hunter offers a personal meditation on the textile arts. Sewing and…
The hot-headed youth who played straight into Hitler’s hands
On 7 November 1938, the 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan walked into the German embassy in Paris. Claiming to have secret papers,…
Cycle of violence: Blood, by Maggie Gee, reviewed
Maggie Gee has written 14 novels including The White Family, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s…
Dau is the strangest and most unsettling piece of art to come out of Russia in years
Dau is not so much a film as a document of a mass human experiment. The result is dark, brilliant…
Only adults struggle with The Magic Flute. Kids get it
Spoiler alert: it’s all a dream. At least, I think that’s what we’re meant to take away from the business…
The attempt to bring back topicality to Ambridge has been far too effective
It’s becoming clear that the travails afflicting all the major players in The Archers, Radio 4’s flagship drama, are intended…
Why Gomorrah could never have been made by the BBC
Boy often likes to rebuke me for having impossibly high standards when it comes to TV. ‘Why can’t you just…
Terry Hall on depression, punch-ups and falling out of love with the Labour party
It was summer 1981, and the towns and cities of Britain were alight. There had been riots in Brixton, south…
Rivetingly moving: Can You Ever Forgive Me? reviewed
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a true story based on the 2008 memoir of Lee Israel, the writer who…
The odd couple: Bill Viola / Michelangelo at the RA reviewed
The joint exhibition of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Bill Viola at the Royal Academy is, at first glance, an extremely improbable…
Not quite scary or clever enough for legendary status: Resident Evil 2 reviewed
Grade: B Resident Evil 2 takes the original zombie shooter, which has become a cult classic and, to many, the…
A winning hoax: When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other reviewed
The NT’s new play is an update of Pamela, a sexploitation novel by Samuel Richardson. It opens with Stephen Dillane…
Why New York loves John Bercow
‘The British political class has offered to the world an astounding spectacle of mendacious, intellectually limited hustlers.’ This is a…
What Sylvia learned at the constipation clinic
‘The whole of my life I’ve had difficulty.’ I heard Sylvia say this through the door, which was slightly ajar.…
My old horse was tough, ferocious and violent – and I loved her as much as she loved me
Under a blood moon, that was how Tara went down in the end. The old chestnut mare sure knew how…
My miraculous winning streak
Last Saturday morning, Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at Google, was on the radio explaining his algorithm for happiness,…
Bridge
The Norwegian Bridge Press Association’s annual prize for the best-played hand was a particularly hard-fought contest in 2018. Boye Brogeland…
A tale of two tournaments
The start of the year sees the elite of the chess world divided between Wijk aan Zee in Holland and…
no. 539
Black to play. This is from Howell-Bilguun, Gibraltar 2019. How can Black play for the win? Answers to me at…
