After five days of being snowed in, awe and wonder starts to wear off
It took three hours for cabin fever to set in. Last Christmas, snowed in at the Oxfordshire homestead, my brother…
Words to rally and inspire: stirring speeches from Elizabeth I to the present
It was a surprise, on reading Speeches of Note, to find myself laughing and chuckling at the speech of a…
The wildest Wilde of all: the scandalous life of Oscar’s father
‘To have a father is always big news,’ according to the narrator of Sebastian Barry’s early novel, The Engine of…
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Soon that’s all we’ll be able to do
I like a book where you don’t think you’re going to be interested in the subject, but then find it’s…
Will seagulls become as scary as Hitchcock’s The Birds?
Little Toller Books, in Dorset, aims to publish old and new writing on nature by the very best writers and…
The minefield of mime: ‘halt’ to an American signifies ‘hi’ to an Arab
You may have read about this during the Iraq war. A group of local people approach an American position. A…
Why didn’t they try harder to assassinate Hitler?
Awareness of German opposition to Hitler is usually limited to Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s attempt to blow up the wretched…
Biting political satire: China Dream, by Ma Jian, reviewed
Ma Jian’s novels have been banned in his native China for 30 years and he has been hailed as ‘China’s…
Vivien Leigh: the brilliant star that fast burned out
‘Dark Star’ is a suitable enough title in itself, but the definition makes it a brilliant one: ‘A Dark Star’,…
A Lithuanian Romeo and Juliet: Pan Tadeusz, by Adam Mickiewicz, reviewed
It’s hard, in Britain, to imagine a popular museum devoted to a single poem. The Polish city of Wrocław hosts…
How any mother — or baby — survived childbirth before the 20th century is astonishing
Between 1300 and 1900 few things were more dangerous than giving birth. For poor and rich, the mortality rate was…
How apartheid poisoned the world
Around 1970 I was labelled ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ by white South Africa’s newspapers for leading militant anti-apartheid protests which…
High society and low gossip: the journals of Kenneth Rose
Kenneth Rose was gossip columnist by appointment to the aristocracy and gentry. He was, of course, a snob — nobody…
Stuck for something to read? Pick up a Penguin Classic
In 1956, after Penguin Classics had published 60 titles, the editor-in-chief of Penguin Books, William Emrys Williams, wondered: ‘How many…
Spot the Shakespearean character
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Bitten by the cold: the strange attraction of polar exploration
‘We had seen God in his splendours, heard the text that nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of…
The pagan feast of Christmas
This book, an excellent history of Christmas, made me think of a Christmas cartoon strip I once saw in Viz…
Divulging the secret of the famous ‘King’s sound’?
Earlier this year The Spectator published an article in celebration of Evensong — the nightly sung service of the Anglican…
In praise of John Meade Falkner: poet, arms-dealer and unforgettable novelist
When H.H. Asquith, as prime minister, visited Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, during the first world war, he found a vast…
The fascinating story behind one of the best-loved depictions of the Nativity
In the early 1370s an elderly Scandinavian woman living in Rome had a vision of the Nativity. Her name was…
A short history of ice skating
In landscape terms, the Fens don’t have much going for them. What you can say for them, though, is that…
The people have not forgotten me: the exiled Empress of Iran interviewed
Somewhere in the bowels of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is a portrait from a lost world. Its subject…
High and mighty
In this 200th anniversary of the birth of Mrs C.F. Alexander, author of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, all of…
Gary Kemp on pop, Pre-Raphaelites, politics and playing Pinter
The first thing Gary Kemp bought when Spandau Ballet started making money was a chair. He’s very proud of that…
Relish — and cultivate — your grievances
Grudges make the world go around, according to Sophie Hannah. They are ‘an important and fascinating part of human experience’,…