Playing dead
It could be the nuttiest idea ever. The protagonist of this American musical is Death, who secretly reprieves a beautiful…
Notes on a scandal
Kids: who’d have them? Certainly no one who has ever been to the opera. If they’re not murdering you, they’re…
Notes on a scandal
Kids: who’d have them? Certainly no one who has ever been to the opera. If they’re not murdering you, they’re…
Sign of the times
As if on cue, The World At One on Monday (Radio 4) ended with a short (too short) interview with…
Sign of the times
As if on cue, The World At One on Monday (Radio 4) ended with a short (too short) interview with…
Bridge
Not surprisingly, Reykjavik has become a tourist destination again. Delicious restaurants, all those geysers and, if you’re lucky, the Northern…
Will Trump halt the hounding of UK and European banks? Don’t bet on it
President Donald Trump is demolishing his predecessor’s legacy as fast as he can sign executive orders, but one thing for…
Agonised questions
It’s terribly difficult to write a novel about soul-searching, and Elif Shafak has come up with a rather clever device…
The lure of the desert
The great deserts of the world hold a compelling attraction for a rare breed of men who are ‘unwise and…
Another challenge for Trump
James D. Zirin is an experienced litigator as well as the host of a popular television talkshow. In this provocative…
Big skies and frozen wastes
We know our way around Raymond Carver’s blue-collar cityscapes and Updike’s urban angst and despair. Rick Bass opens a window…
And then there was one
After a long struggle to receive mainstream publication, Paul Auster’s first few novels were a genuinely significant contribution to American…
Satirising the artful Hoxha
Blood, they say, is quick on the knife in Albania, where Balkan-style revenge killings, known as giakmarrje (‘blood-takings’), settle ancient…
In hot water
It’s good to be back in Spook Street, home of the nation’s secret service. From a handful of locations across…
Whited sepulchre
‘How often’, wrote Sigmund Freud in 1914, ‘have I mounted the steep steps from the unlovely Corso Cavour to the…
Riding the storm
Clover Stroud opens her memoir with the crippling bout of post-natal depression that hit after the birth of her fourth…
The great Norse soap opera
Norse myths are having a moment. Or should I say another moment; one of a long chain of moments, in…
Sins of the flesh
Bill Schutt has an excellent subject, and he explores it from a promising angle. Cannibalism has long interested zoologists, anthropologists,…
This is not a strong government – so why isn’t the opposition opposing it?
‘For heaven’s sake, man, go!’ A week after the Brexit referendum, and that was David Cameron at the despatch box,…
No. 10 is learning how to deal with the Donald
Imagine if Donald Trump declared that Islam had ‘no place’ in his country, or proposed banning the burqa ‘wherever legally…
The Spectator’s Notes
As he left the editorship of The Spectator in March 1984, Alexander Chancellor wrote in this space: ‘When I joined…
The real George III
Before he died aged 44 (probably of a pulmonary embolism, poor chap), Frederick, Prince of Wales, compiled a list of…
The ghastly truth
Paul Johnson once wrote that the ability to say ‘really’ in 12 different ways was the birthright of every true…
Rules for loneliness
An old acquaintance died recently. A friend of mine, who was closer to him than I was, rang to tell…
‘Above all else, fun’
Alexander Chancellor’s ‘Long Life’ is over; but it was not nearly long enough. I was feeling rather gloomy last Friday,…
