Death

Back from the beyond: The Book of Love, by Kelly Link, reviewed

3 February 2024 9:00 am

Three adolescents reappear in their home town on the Massachusetts coast, having been presumed dead – which is closer to the truth than their families realise

Septuagenarians behaving badly: Stockholm, by Noa Yedlin, reviewed

6 January 2024 9:00 am

Four elderly people conspire, for different reasons, to keep the death of their friend a secret until he’s safely awarded the expected Nobel Prize for Economics

How to date a widower

25 November 2023 9:00 am

‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’: Sophie Calle interviewed

4 November 2023 9:00 am

‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’ Thus Sophie Calle objected to the first line of…

Richard E. Grant’s tribute to his wife leaves us shattered for his loss

1 October 2022 9:00 am

Richard E. Grant pulls off a feat here. The title is twee but the content isn’t. With unselfpitying dash the…

‘I always made an awkward bow’: John Keats’s poignant farewell

24 September 2022 9:00 am

On Sunday 17 September 1820, John Keats and his travelling companion, the young painter Joseph Severn, set sail for Italy,…

James Bond and the Beatles at war for Britain’s soul

17 September 2022 9:00 am

‘Better use your sense,’ advised Bob Dylan: ‘take what you have gathered from coincidence.’ John Higgs is a master of…

A dying doctor’s last words

27 August 2022 9:00 am

Facing up to the prospect of one’s own mortality is always jarring; but when you’ve spent your life trying, and…

A lost brother: My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is, by Paul Stanbridge, reviewed

27 August 2022 9:00 am

Grief leads us down some strange roads. Few, though, can be as peculiar as those charted by Paul Stanbridge in…

Naples will never escape the shadow of Vesuvius

9 July 2022 9:00 am

Naples, the tatterdemalion capital of the Italian south, is said to be awash with heroin. Chinese-run morphine refineries on its…

It is time for me to ‘get right with the Lord’

11 June 2022 9:00 am

‘But you look so well!’ How many times have I heard that lately. Kindly meant by most, but for a…

What do Beethoven, D.H. Lawrence and George Best have in common?

11 June 2022 9:00 am

This is not a book about tennis. Roger Federer appears early on, trailed by the obligatory question ‘When will he…

Murder, suicide and apocalypse: Here Goes Nothing, by Steve Toltz, reviewed

30 April 2022 9:00 am

Angus Mooney is dead. Freshly murdered, he’s appalled to find himself in an Afterworld, having always rejected the possibility of…

Sister, where are you? – Clover Stroud mourns her beloved sibling

5 March 2022 9:00 am

‘CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY,’ the freshly issued death certificate read. In the craziness and shock of grief for…

A playful version of the universe: Pure Colour, by Sheila Heti, reviewed

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Readers familiar with Sheila Heti’s work, most notably How Should a Person Be? and Motherhood, in which she examines both…

The dark world of illness influencers

12 February 2022 9:00 am

I have heartburn. I probably have heartburn simply because both my parents also had a lot of heartburn, and I…

The best podcasts about dying, or almost dying

15 January 2022 9:00 am

If there’s any form of entertainment that I will reliably find time for, no matter how big the to-read pile…

It's hard not to pity Ghislaine Maxwell

18 November 2021 5:00 pm

It’s hard not to feel a batsqueak of pity for Ghislaine Maxwell — 500 days and counting in solitary confinement.…

Covid has warped our collective attitude to death

19 June 2021 9:00 am

Covid or no Covid, we’re all going to snuff it

Death by negligence: why did no one diagnose my sister’s TB?

12 June 2021 9:00 am

In 2016, Arifa Akbar’s elder sister, Fauzia, died suddenly in the Royal Free Hospital, London at the age of 45.…

Covid deaths in context

27 May 2021 8:04 pm

What would have been your overall chances of dying in the first 19 weeks of 2021 compared with recent years?…

Mourning sickness: our conspiracy of silence over grief

17 April 2021 9:00 am

Why are we so scared of other people’s grief?

Tales from my private jet

13 March 2021 9:00 am

Gstaad I was very sad to read of Rupert Hambro’s death. I didn’t know him well, but first met him…

The art of mourning well

13 February 2021 9:00 am

Malindi, Kenya I’ve learned that mourning must be tackled ever so gently. As a younger man, when friends were killed…

Eccentric, artist and storyteller: in memory of my mother Doreen Sanders

16 January 2021 9:00 am

Indian Ocean coast ‘I love you’ became just ‘love’, and that was the last word Mum was able to say…