ambition
A portrait of alienation: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, by Kiran Desai, reviewed
Two lovers from wealthy families in Allahabad contend with powerful forces of ambition, corruption, neighbouring feuds and sexual violence
The crimes of Cecil Rhodes were every bit as sinister as those of the Nazis
Through bribery and ruthless exploitation, the unapologetic racist worked to unite Africa under British rule – with consequences that still haunt us today
Richard Ellmann: the man and his masks
James Joyce’s celebrated biographer seemed a mild man to fellow academics – but his ambition and steely self-belief made him a callous husband and father
Things Fall Apart: Flesh, by David Szalay, reviewed
The fluctuating fortunes of an ambitious young Hungarian in London provide a gripping study of the choices that can make or break a life
Hope springs eternal: The Café with No Name, by Robert Seethaler, reviewed
It’s Vienna, 1966, and a young labourer casts a speculative eye on a ramshackle café in the corner of the Karmelitermarkt, daring to restore it and improve his lot
Politics as Ripping Yarns: the breathless brio of Boris Johnson’s memoir
Like a cross between Aeneas and Biggles, our intrepid hero travels the world, endures a thousand ordeals and makes himself father of the world’s greatest city
Nothing satisfies Madonna for very long
Her ‘rebel’ life, as told by Mary Gabriel, has been a frenzied churn of friends, lovers, mentors and collaborators, vital to her for a year or two and then discarded
A sadder and a wiser man
‘Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults.’ A.N. Wilson seems, on the surface, to have taken to heart…
Ignoble ambitions
This is the gripping story of the ever-fluctuating fortunes of three generations of the Dudley dynasty, servants to — and…
The places that make us
In the summer of 2019, the journalist Anita Sethi was on a train travelling across northern England when she was…
Beware the female stalker: Dream Sequence, by Adam Foulds, reviewed
Adam Foulds’s fourth novel, Dream Sequence, is an exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love verging on…
Who is Sylvia – what is she?
In May 1956, three months after meeting Ted Hughes, one before they will marry, Sylvia Plath writes to her mother…
The Spectator’s Notes
Amnesty International and others have placed a large newspaper advertisement telling Michael Gove ‘Don’t Scrap Our Human Rights’. The ad…
The trouble with Bristol
A city with a chip on its shoulder
Demosthenes on Johnson and Salmond
The ancient Greek word for ‘ambition’ was philotimia: ‘love of high esteem in others’ eyes’. Both Boris and Alex Salmond…
