Book review
Madness and mayhem
The inbred Habsburg monarchs, who for centuries ruled without method over a vast, ramshackle empire, managed to leave an indelible mark on modern Europe, says Sam Leith
No Hungarian rhapsody
Novels about growing up have two great themes: loss of innocence and the forging of identity. With this sparky, sharp-eyed…
The traffic in falsehood
The term ‘419’ is drawn from the article in the Nigerian penal code that addresses fraud. However, it has transcended…
National hero
Philip Ziegler is best known for his biographies, often official, of politicians, royalty and soldiers. They include Harold Wilson, Edward…
Overnight trillionaires
In Germany in 1923 money was losing its value so fast that the state printing works could not keep up.…
Of ants and men
His publishers describe this ‘ground-breaking book on evolution’ by ‘the most celebrated living heir to Darwin’ as ‘the summa work…
Indecent exposure
This biography has somewhat more news value than most literary biographies. Its subject worked hard to ensure that. After 1965,…
Writ in stone
James McConnachie finds that theology and geology have been unlikely bedfellows for centuries
At cross purposes
Justin Cartwright is famously a fan of John Updike — and here he seems to owe a definite debt to…
From brilliance to burn-out
Thick, sentimental and with a narrative bestriding four decades, Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings feels above all like a Victorian novel,…
Here comes everybody
This is an unusual book: a Spanish historian writes the life of an English historian of Spain. In doing so,…
Escapism for the gullible
The two opening volumes of Margaret Atwood’s trilogy have sold over a million copies. One of them managed to be…
The Pepys de nos jours
Frederic Raphael is forensic in his description of the failures of successful people. He is enviously superior and he is…
The moving picture of life
Almost 30 years after his death, François Truffaut remains a vital presence in the cinema. Terrence Malick and Wes Anderson…
Recent crime fiction
Denise Mina’s 11th crime novel, The Red Road (Orion, £12.99), is one of her best, which is saying a good…
Fighting communism single-handed
Had Onan not spilled his seed upon the ground, he might have invented invisible ink. The possibility had not occurred…
Trying to keep afloat
The unlikely heroine of Mave Fellowes’s Chaplin & Company (Cape, £16.99) is a highly-strung, posh-speaking, buttoned-up 18-year-old with the unhelpful…
The plight of the predestined
There could be no backsliding while preparing the next plot, murder or battle in the French Wars of Religion, says Hywel Williams
The inside story
Many books have been written about the corruption, venality and incestuousness that characterise Washington DC, but none has been as…
A legend in his own time
The last time David Peace wrote a novel about football he got his publishers sued for libel, which may help…
What we really really didn’t want
The title of Alwyn W. Turner’s book could deter readers. Even the Hollywood film The Secret Lives of Dentists promised…
Beyond this, nothing
This may sound a little orientalist, but Tangier has some claim to being the most foreign city in the world.…
Ruthless Roundheads
Adrian Tinniswood, so gifted and spirited a communicator of serious history to a wide readership, here brings a number of…
Last man standing
Like Mel Brooks’s character the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, Peter Lewis has met everyone of consequence. Though he doesn’t mention being…
Life in the Augean stables
What, really, is a literary education for? What’s the point of it? How, precisely, does it help when you’re another…
