Libraries

Reading, writing and arithmetic – the glorious interrelation of maths and literature

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Sarah Hart discusses the Oulipo group, Jorge Luis Borges and Eleanor Catton among other writers who have explored the use of mathematics in their works

The Sistine Chapel as you've never seen it before

27 February 2021 9:00 am

Rosie Millard gets her gloved hands on one of the world’s most lavish – and expensive – art books

Jerusalem’s libraries contain priceless treasures — but almost no one gets to see them

13 July 2019 9:00 am

The bearded figure clad in white robes and wandering barefoot through the streets of Jerusalem is not, in fact, the…

Apollo 8 on its launch pad in December 1968. Photo: AP / REX / Shutterstock

Remembering the 1968 Apollo mission – when the world was reaching to the future rather than drawing in

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Take yourself back to (or try to imagine) Christmas 1968; a year full of disturbances, dashed hopes and extreme violence…

It’s Christmas. You don’t want Götterdämmerung. You want a waltz-operetta

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Grade: A– 1898: two Parisiennes and a housemaid secretly invite each other’s partners to the Paris Opera ball and… c’mon,…

Hernando Columbus deserves to be as famous as his father, Christopher

12 May 2018 9:00 am

On 9 May 1502, a young Spaniard joined the fleet setting sail for the newly discovered Americas. The boy, Hernando,…

Jonathan Coe’s raucous social satire smoulders with anger

14 November 2015 9:00 am

When Rachel, one of the unreliable narrators of Number 11, wants to ‘go back to the very beginning’, she starts…

Dear Mary: How to cope with London Library overcrowding

9 May 2015 9:00 am

Q. As a writer I find working at home too distracting. I am a longstanding member of the London Library…

The National Trust is spoiling beautiful places in the name of people who’ll never visit them

15 November 2014 9:00 am

Why do we ruin beautiful places to make them appeal to those who’ll never visit anyway?

Dear Mary: How can I escape the tyranny of teacher presents?

5 April 2014 9:00 am

Q. It’s only April and yet I am being emailed by parents who have already taken charge and are drumming…