The Northern Lights
Getting here took a long time. First a flight to Seattle, then a connection to Fairbanks, followed by a coach…
Send in the clowns
A review of The Greatest Shows on Earth by Linda Simon reports that female acrobats as well as freaks were considered ‘liberated’ by the Victorian circus
Pure Alice in Wonderland
Meet the eccentric aristocrat who gardens in diamonds, with a gin in one hand and a chainsaw in the other, in a review of Digging with the Duchess by Sam Llewellyn
Powerful pathos
Craig Raine pays homage to the genius of Seamus Heaney in a review of his New Selected Poems
Older and wiser after the storm
A review of Let Me be Frank With You by Richard Ford reveals the 68-year-old Frank Bascombe happy in his retirement despite the proximity of his ex-wife
Bound and caged, but fighting-fit
A review of The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore reveals that the creator of the cartoon heroine also invented the polygraph and maintained a curious ménage-à-trois
A hymn to ancient and modern
In a review of the new Pevsner Cambridgeshire, Simon Heffer admires the city at its heart that doubles as an ancient university and a showpiece of modern architecture
Wonders will never cease
In a review of the medieval Arab Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange, one of the greatest marvels is that the manuscript survived at all
Sunset Hails a Rising
O lente, lente currite noctis equi! — Marlowe, after Ovid. La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée. —Valéry. Dying…
In search of the Fatherland
A review of Germany by Neil MacGregor suggests that Germans have always been federalists and that the Holy Roman Empire which lasted 1,000 years was a forerunner of today’s EU
A heterodox understanding of Jesus
Damian Thompson urges us all to read the fascinating and provocative Christ Actually: The Son of God for a Secular Age by James Carroll
Title stories: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
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All things bleak and beautiful
A review of Christoph Baumer’s History of Central Asia explores some of the loneliest and loveliest places on earth
Daring a fleeting smile
A review of The Smile Revolution in 18th-century Paris by Colin Jones shows how advances in French dentistry spawned a whole new genre in portrait painting
Brave, drunken, violent and law-abiding
A review of Robert Tombs’s history of the English salutes a stupendous achievement
Juliet Townsend (1941-2014)
Mark Amory remembers a close friend and Spectator reviewer, whose range included Rudyard Kipling, children’s books, Northamptonshire, lord lieutenants and Georgette Heyer
Escape into Moomin world
A review of Tove Jansson: Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen reveals that the Moomins’ creator dreamt of living with her mother like two bears in a den
In the Emergency School
We were registered as a form, and for the first day Left unsupervised alone in a distant room With empty…
Grimmer — and no better
A review of Grimms’ Original Folk and Fairy Tales suggests that the first version lacked the best bits
Travels in Nowhere Land
A review of Transnistria by Rory MacLean provides an insight into a country that is recognised by no other country
Bruegel’s Bethlehem
The world depicted by the Flemish master in 'Census at Bethlehem' is all too familiar, says Martin Gayford
Dirty dancing
It’s a ritual that passes for culture and tradition but is neither, says Norman Lebrecht
