Servants of the super-rich
London’s greatest growth industry is catering to foreign plutocrats — and someone sent us its trade directory
Demob unhappy
Newspapers bulged with small ads placed by demobilised officers. One journalist followed up
Away from the herd
The herders are under pressure not just from Isis, but from a thrusting new urban culture
Dead expensive
There’s no legal obligation to use a funeral director. And it may be that you can make a better job of it
The beginning of the end
Clare Mulley admires Antony Beevor’s account of the Ardennes in 1944, but finds is almost unbearably painful reading
Are you sitting properly?
Three studies of the gut give a whole new meaning to toilet books, says William Cook. They’re actually worth reading
All the men and women merely players
Henry Hitchings enjoys two new books on Shakespeare (to add to the 12,554) — and especially a description of Edmund Kean’s electrifying, drunk Hamlet in 1814
Not a patch on our own Dear Mary
Claire Cock-Starkey’s collection of outmoded advice from volumes in the British Library is published too early in the year — it would have made a great Christmas loo book
A narcissistic bore — portrait of the artist today
Artists are so dull and self-important these days — witness Richard Cork’s and Hans Ulrich Obrist’s turgid, witless interviews with them, says Stephen Bayley
No sex, please, in the Detection Club
The Golden Age of crime writing is over and all the great fictional detectives are gone. Call it Inspector Lestrade’s revenge, says John Sutherland
Not-so-evil genius
Patrice Gueniffey’s 1,000-page biography of Napoleon may exhaust even the most ardent enthusiast, says Conrad Black —who counts himself as one. And there are another three volumes to come.
Punk in a funk
Tracey Thorn voices her anxieties in Naked at the Albert Hall, a haunting memoir of singing and stage-fright
Raiders of the lost Ark
Even if we could bring back the woolly mammoth (for one), where would it live?, asks Caspar Henderson. And do we really want it anyway?
The more deceived
The duped party in a forgery is not all that duped, says Jonathan Meades. He is mutely complicit with the swindler
Hope against hope
Jimfish, Christopher Hope’s caustic new satire on South Africa, has a surprisingly upbeat finale — but Patrick Flanery is unconvinced
Sharpen your pencil
Mary Norris’s Between You and Me takes a charmingly pragmatic approach to its own eccentric advice
Lacan Appeals to the Patient
Since you remain reluctant, let us imagine that one’s selfhood is a work of art — a maquette in clay,…
Behind the beat
No wonder drummers seem to bang on a bit sometimes, says Andrew Petrie: it’s the only way they can register their existence
A choice of first novels
First novels usually turn out to be fourth or fifth attempts, says Mario Reading. But this latest batch is a cut above average
The Best View in England
that’s what she said. Of course, I begin to find fault: a shrub partly obscures the view, there’s a glint…
More Marx than Dante
The scattered high points include work by Joan Jonas, Georg Baselitz, Peter Doig, Patricia Cronin and Sean Scully - but Sarah Lucas gets half marks
Polite pillage
Designer Alison Chitty provides the necessary visual volume but elsewhere there’s too much timidity - especially from Leigh
