Beautiful and damned
A review of Weimar, by Michael H. Kater. An absorbing history about the corruption of a once great artistic centre
Suffering in silence
Andrew Taylor’s historical crime novel, The Silent Boy, is so good it makes you rethink all your high-low prejudices. It reminds me of Dickens
Like a Prayer
The heat in the day-room can put you to sleep there’s a man reciting the days of the week like…
Poet, priest and life-enhancer
A review of Peter Levi: Oxford Romantic, by Brigid Allen. A loving biography of a poet priest who went from emaciated El Greco to fat country squire
Title Stories: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
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What is going on?
You may have to read this fictional account of a 15th-century painter at least one-and-a-half times to understand it, but it's worth it
We shall fight them on the beaches…
A review of Operation Sealion: How Britain Crushed the German war Machine’s Dreams of Invasion in 1940, by Leo McKinstry. Civil liberties went out the window when the Nazis threatened
Lords of the ring
A review of Bouts of Mania: Ali, Frazier, Foreman and an America on the Ropes, by Richard Hoffer. Boxing was as much about politics, money and race as fighting
Layers of meaning
A review of Uelsmann Untitled: A Retrospective, by Jerry N. Uelsmann. There's no denying that these strange images are part of a venerable tradition – or that a teenager with Photoshop could have done it quicker
In love with the lodger
A review of The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters. The sex is blazingly described but then, alas, the Plot raises its boring head
In the gutter, looking at the stars
A review of In Montmatre: Picasso, Matisse and Modernism in Paris, 1900 – 1910, by Sue Roe. This rollicking read is at its best when describing the bacchanalian squalor
X and his complexes
A review of The Dog, by Joseph O’Neill. This riff on Kafka’s The Castle is dominated by a creep but we stay with it because the satire is absurdly funny
Full of sound and fury
A review of A People’s History of the French Revolution, by Eric Hazan. A riveting piece of revisionist history by a dyed-in-the-wool communist
The enigma of Werner Herzog
A new box set from the BFI reveals the full extent of the German director’s genius — and insanity
Small is not beautiful
Neither OperaUpClose’s La traviata nor Finborough Theatre’s production of Boughton’s The Immortal Hour quite cut it
The art of protest
The V&A's Disobedient Objects. Plus: an exhibition in Suffolk dedicated to the map-mad younger brother of Eric Gill
Dolts, doormats and FGM
But Theatre 503’s unflinching look at the practice of genital mutilation is sophisticated and unpreachy
Wood work
Fifty of Ursula von Rydingsvard’s monumental sculptures are now on show in this largest ever exhibition of her work
