Childhood
‘Sitting the 11-plus was the most momentous event of my life’ – Geoff Dyer
‘Everything else that has happened couldn’t have happened were it not for that’, says Dyer, in a funny, moving account of growing up in postwar England
AI killed the Easter Bunny
On the grounds of advancing age, I had decided to ignore all the chatter about artificial intelligence and devote my…
The nerdy obsessive who became the world’s richest man
Seen by fellow pupils as an obnoxious loner, Bill Gates was a rebellious teenager, challenging his teachers and ‘at war’ with his parents
Echoes of Tom Brown’s School Days: Rabbits, by Hugo Rifkind, reviewed
When 16-year-old Tommo moves to an elite, brutish boarding school, he longs to fit in and even manages to join the inner circle. But can he ever really become ‘one of them’?
A tragedy waiting to happen: Tiananmen Square, by Lai Wen, reviewed
A moving coming-of-age novel sees a shy, introverted girl finding friends and freedom at Beijing university – until the authorities begin their murderous clamp-down
The day Keir Starmer cried on me about his childhood
I have had a good idea. It may even be an important idea. See what you think. The other day…
Letters: the Tory party has gone mad
Right is wrong Sir: Katy Balls’s article ‘Survival Plan’ (4 May) starts from a false premise. The problem is not…
Making tracks
Now in her seventies, the travel writer returns to her childhood in Australia, and the trauma of losing her mother at the age of 11
Remember, remember
The world that blossoms in this haunting novel about the importance of memory is in the aesthetic vein known as ‘mono no aware’, or ‘the pathos of things’
Rising star
The second volume of Knausgaard’s trilogy serves as a prequel to the first, tracing the origins of Norway’s ominous new celestial body
What cinema is for
Cuties is the subject of a moral panic and a hashtag #CancelNetflix. It tells the story of Amy (Fathia Youssouf),…
Why are children so fearful about the future?
For any bosses from the Singapore education department reading this, I have a message. It comes from (I’d guess) most…
The highs – and lows – of learning to fly a kite
I’ve flown only three kites in my life. My stepfather bought me the first. I remember seeing him from a…
![Photograph of an almshouse waif by Lewis W. Hine, entitled ‘Little Orphan Annie in a Pittsburg Institution’ (1909) [Bridgeman Art Library]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/bookslead4aug.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
‘I am not a number’: the callous treatment of orphans
Orphans are everywhere in literature — Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Oliver Twist, Daniel Deronda, and onwards to the present day. They…
Vignettes of a bygone English childhood
Across the fields from the medieval manor house of Toad Hall, and the accompanying 16th-century timber-frame apothecary’s house which Alan…
The Florida Project never sanctifies or demonises and is absorbing throughout
The Florida Project is a drama set in one of those cheap American motels occupied by poor people who would…
Frater, ave atque vale
As his obituaries pointed out, my brother David made a name for himself with his unrideable bicycle; his ‘perpetual motion’…
Private fears
Prep schools are a soul-sapping waste of money
Why I’d like to be a more dangerous dad
According to figures obtained by BBC Breakfast last week, more than 500 people were arrested in England and Wales in…
Aristotle on the Lego chair
So Cambridge University has accepted £4 million from the makers of Lego (snort) to fund a Lego chair (Argos sells…
Songs of innocence and experience
We live in an age of generational turmoil. Baby-boom parents are accused of clinging on to jobs and houses which…
The age of the Skype Dad
What happens when a divorce court accepts video calls as a substitute for visiting your children
The end of childhood
When the state excuses underage sex, what chance do our children have?
Diary
Last week I went to the exhilarating English National Opera production of Wagner’s The Mastersingers — five hours of wonderful…
Diary
Two million pounds can buy you consideration for a place on a medical trial! Every year untold numbers of potential…
