Snow White or black beauty?
Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child offers disappointingly flimsy answers to some seriously important questions, says Sarah Churchwell
Sum total
Midnight to dawn adding one more to the serial tally, love and irritation carried over, borrowed and paid back, all…
Songs of innocence and experience
We can stop worrying about all those twentysomethings still living with their parents, according to Steven Mintz’s The Prime of Life. In an age of profound generational turmoil, they’ll probably do best in the end
Blitzed on Benzedrine
Chris Fletcher wonders whether the couple who took over Kelmscott Manor during the 1940s noticed there was a war going on at all: they were too blitzed on sex, booze and Benzedrine to care
Full of sound and fury
Jane Dawson’s biography of John Knox suggests that the strident leader of the Scottish Reformation may have had a sensitive side after all, says Eric Anderson
A break from sabre-thrusting
It’s peacetime and it’s snowing in the 12th instalment of Allan Mallinson’s tales of a cavalry officer: time for our hero to pause and review his career
Sher force of character
According to Antony Sher’s Year of the Fat Knight — his account of playing Falstaff with the RSC — acting is a conveyor-belt job and not half as much fun as drawing or writing
A graceful writer and a graceful man
Derek was straight out of Scott Fitzgerald, recalls Tom Stoppard, and his idea for a thriller about a double agent ordered to kill himself was absolutely brilliant
Mexican wave
On their recent tour of the Americas, the Tallis Scholars had some surprising encounters - musical, literary and culinary
He’s got rhythm
It’s hard to inject swing into modernist sculpture, but Gaudier-Brzeska managed - just about
Triple triumph
Plus: a David McVicar production from the Met forces Tanner to switch allegiances from Cav to Pag
Losing the plot
Plus: only Eugene O’Neill maniacs will want to catch Ah, Wilderness! at the Young Vic
Crowd pleaser
It’s told at a cracking pace and, even though Matthias Schoenaerts’ British accent comes and goes, the casting is excellent
Aussie rules
James Delingpole finds a new documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s journalist father - Gallipoli: When Murdoch Went To War - a fascinating eye-opener
Presence of mind
Plus: Lore’s Story on Radio 4, a beautifully honest series of audio conversations about dementia and death
John Eliot Gardiner
There are few things this conductor can’t do. But one art eludes him: good manners
High life
A great magazine finally expired last week when it put such an obscenity as Kanye West on the cover
Bridge
When I first started playing bridge, about 15 years ago, I ‘trained’ at TGR’s rubber bridge club, which was located…
Nigel’s controversy
British chess grandmaster Nigel Short has form when it comes to provocative statements. When competing in a tournament in France…
