Autobiography
The old monster Elton John appears charmingly self-deprecating
I don’t care for Elton John. A cross between Violet Elizabeth Bott and Princess Margaret, his temper tantrums are legendary,…
Debbie Harry makes the perfect pop star
My admiration for Deborah Harry goes back a long way and — fittingly for a woman who even as a…
Entertaining Iris Murdoch – for months on end
If you know your Peter Conradi from your Peter J. Conradi, you’ll also know that the former is foreign editor…
Homer Simpson meets Homer
Milan Kundera has said that Homer’s Odyssey was the first novel. I’m not so sure — the verse kind of…
Some insights into autism
The Reason I Jump, by the autistic Japanese teenager Naoki Higashida, was a surprise bestseller in 2013. Rendered as a…
Diana Athill finally accepts ‘Old Woman’ status, aged 98
There’s something reassuring about 98-year-old Diana Athill. She’s stately and well-ordered, like the gardens at Ditchingham Hall in Norfolk, her…
Nottingham resuscitates a classic of the 60s literary avant-garde
In the basement of a busy café in Hockley, Nottingham, which may not have known exactly what it was letting…
‘People are interested in what I’m doing again’: Robert Lepage interviewed
There’s a scene in 887, Robert Lepage’s latest show, which opened at the Edinburgh International Festival last week, in which…
‘I was facing truths I didn’t particularly want to look at’: Michael Moorcock interview
By the kind of uncanny coincidence that would tickle his psychogeographically minded friends Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, Michael Moorcock’s…
The fast, furious life of Max Mosley
Max Mosley’s autobiography has been much anticipated: by the motor racing world, by the writers and readers of tabloid newspapers,…
Wendy Cope on hating school, meeting Billy Graham and enduring Freudian analysis
A surprise! I took this book from its envelope expecting a fresh collection of Wendy Cope’s poems, and opened it…
A woman who wears her homes like garments
Depending on your approach, home is where your heart is, where you hang your hat, or possibly where you hang…
The author’s father didn’t want you to read this book. It’s hard to understand why
There were several times when reading A Dog’s Life that I felt as if I’d fallen into a time warp.…
Middlemarch: the novel that reads you
The genesis of The Road to Middlemarch was a fine article in the New Yorker about Rebecca Mead’s unsuccessful search…
Secrets of Candleford: the real Flora Thompson
When Richard Mabey was researching this biography of Flora Thompson, author of Lark Rise to Candleford, he happened to stay…
Finally, a celebrity memoir worth reading
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
The vengeance of Alex Ferguson
For a quarter of a century Sir Alex Ferguson bestrode football’s narrow world like a colossus. Like his predecessor knight-manager,…
Morrissey can't even moan properly — here's a frontman who can
There is much to be said for Schadenfreude. (If it was edible, it would be a meal in a very…
My dear old thing! Forget the nasty bits
There can be a strong strain of self-parody in even the greatest commentators. When Henry Blofeld describes the progress of…
Malala's voice is defiant — but how much can she change Pakistan?
In 2012 a Taleban gunman, infuriated by Malala Yousafzai’s frequent television appearances insisting that girls had a right to education,…
As Luck Would Have It, by Derek Jacobi - review
Alan Bennett once overheard an old lady say, ‘I think a knighthood was wasted on Derek Jacobi,’ and I know…
An Appetite for Wonder, by Richard Dawkins - review
It is peculiarly apt that the author of this autobiography should be the man who coined that now fashionable term…
There and Then: Personal Terms 6, by Frederic Raphael - review
Frederic Raphael is forensic in his description of the failures of successful people. He is enviously superior and he is…
As Green as Grass, by Emma Smith - review
The title, the subtitle, the author’s plain name, even the jacket’s photograph of a laughing old lady in sunglasses: none…
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'One warm night in June 1917 I became the man who nearly killed the Kaiser'
Daniel Swift 1 March 2014 9:00 am
The traditional story told about the first world war is that it changed everything: that it was the end of…