Books
If On the Road’s great, what else have I missed?
This week’s column is dedicated to all those of you who have never read Catcher in the Rye and who,…
These I have loved
In the preface to his great collection of essays The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden claimed: ‘I prefer a critic’s notebooks…
Man of many worlds
Cult novelist Michael Moorcock on fantasy, his father, and the London he loved and lost
Diary
The week starts well. My debut novel, The Miniaturist, is a year old. On the anniversary of its publication, my…
The London ear
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
A letter from Harper Lee
Avoiding publicity doesn’t stop her being sharp-eyed, curious and impeccably well-mannered. I have the evidence
Diary
My husband says I only write books in order to have a launch party. Not so. I also write books…
Diary
I am writing a play about Dr Johnson and his Dictionary. It will be performed in Scotland later this year.…
How to pick a vicar
I know just the man my parish church needs. Unfortunately he’s Catholic – and fictional
Scobberlotcher
Hilary Spurling found a certain blunting of the irregularities of John Aubrey’s language in Ruth Scurr’s vicarious autobiography of the…
Diary
This last week, in India, I visited six cities in seven days: Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta and New Delhi.…
Novel distractions
Procrastination is easier in the age of Google – but less honest
Diary
Just back from Sri Lanka, a place I first went to in 1981. It was then a dreamy island. I…
Glasgow School of Art
I was working on the final edit of my book — a fictionalised account of the year Charles Rennie Mackintosh…
High life
Welcome to 2015, the year that speaking and writing freely had to stop. Anything that might cause trauma to anyone…
Diary
Soon after I joined the Sun as managing editor (among other things, I used to review novels for The Spectator),…
S&M and B&Q
I never got beyond page 20 in Fifty Shades of Grey. No one got shot in the first chapter, and…
Dear Mary
Q. What can you do when disorganised friends say they would love to come to a concert with you but…
Diary
It was quite fun being named as the new writer of 007 — although actually I’d make a lousy spy.…
An excess of spin
Pietersen’s self-indulgent tales of woe lack credibility
Battle of the bookworms
‘Did you find it a good read?’ asked Harrriett Gilbert. An incredibly long drawn-out sigh from Mr Paxman. ‘I think…
Diary
No, no, no, you don’t want a house abroad — the paperwork, the taxes, the piping, the cost of the…
Dear Mary
Q. A scholarly book of great importance to me appears to have gone missing from my library. It was heavily…
The freedom of the heat
Those of us who have been struggling to endure the recent heat should turn to L.P. Hartley’s classic coming-of-age novel The…
Welcome to the club
Writing frankly about Jamaica has made me nervous of invitations from strangers. How would this one turn out?
