Memoir
The tiny island in the wild North Atlantic that ‘feels like the safest place in the world’
As Tim Ecott observes the breeding seabirds on the loneliest of the Faroe Islands, he experiences a sense of belonging to a secret kingdom
The intrepid volunteers who risk all to preserve Ukraine’s cultural heritage
Among the many heroes Charlotte Higgins encounters in Ukraine are those who brave bombardment to retrieve artefacts from museums that would otherwise be lost forever
Looking for Katrin: Rory MacLean goes in search of his dead wife
In an attempt to find some meaning in his grief, the author explores how different faiths, philosophies or ‘timeless traditions’ embrace the afterlife
Revelling in the music of words
Michael Cunningham helps us appreciate the ‘cello-like flow’ of clauses or the hiss of an ‘s’ in other contemporary authors’ works, while turning a critical eye on his own novels, too
When Mum went marching with the EDL
Nicola Wilding describes how her 60-year-old mother, prompted by the brutal murder of Lee Rigby, unexpectedly decided to join ranks with Tommy Robinson
How does the Catholic J.D. Vance justify Trumpian policies?
Curiously, the President is almost invisible in Vance’s latest memoir – so perhaps the VP is attempting to distance himself, at least as far as his current job allows
Southern Gothic: the horror story of Alex Murdaugh, paterfamilias and ‘family annihilator’
James Lasdun attempts to fathom what drove an apparently respectable, caring South Carolina lawyer to slaughter his wife and youngest son
Small, skewed pictures that cast a spell: the art of Mollie Douthit
The novelist Sara Baume describes how her admiration for Douthit’s idiosyncratic oil paintings led to a strange, tentative friendship
Do single women bother to cook for themselves?
Eli Davies and her spinster friends admit to a mostly ‘feral’ diet – of Kettle Chips and a satsuma, or a handful of grated cheese, or toast, washed down with vodka
The joy of chucking little wooden blocks around
Neil Squires delights in the Finnish game of Mölkky, whereby players aim to knock over 12 numbered wooden skittles using a single throwing pin
Witty, lyrical and abstract: the art of Kurt Schwitters
The German Dadaist developed his own brand of anti-rational art, transforming the junk of everyday life into vivid collages
Why should it be shameful to study the Classics?
Mary Beard offers an intelligent defence of the time-honoured subject amid calls to denounce it as a tool of racism, fascism or imperialism
A weary trek in the steps of Garibaldi and his Redshirts
Tim Parks and his wife struggle over scrub and scree in Sicily following the march of the Thousand in May 1860
Landscapes of longing in illuminated Books of Hours
Recalling his lonely childhood in New Zealand, Christopher de Hamel describes how his enduring love of medieval manuscripts took root
The harm of dwelling on a traumatic past
The important thing is to navigate life in such a way that you are not consumed by painful memories, says the psychiatrist Gwen Adshead
Living in the shadow of Etna
The myriad businesses thriving in the volcano’s rich soil and varying microclimates can be destroyed in a matter of minutes, as Helena Attlee reminds us
Lloyd Blankfein – guiding light of Goldman Sachs
While considered a safe pair of hands during the financial crisis of 2007, Blankfein skirts around some of Goldman’s more controversial decisions at the time
Frederic Prokosch – the man who seemed to know everyone
A beguiling memoir boasts intimate encounters with many of the 20th century’s most celebrated writers – but should we believe a word of it?
The sorrows of the young Melvyn Bragg
His first impression of Oxford University in 1958 was of ‘effortless wealth and privilege everywhere’ and, feeling like a foreigner, he pined for the familiarity of close-knit Wigton
The lost world of the pinball machine
In a touchingly Proustian memoir, Andreas Bernard hymns a youth spent flipping small steel balls in bars and resort arcades throughout Europe and America
The citizens of nowhere adrift in the West
Threatened with violence in her native Turkey, the writer Ece Temelkuran finds herself, like countless migrants, permanently ‘unhomed’
Growing up with thieves, murderers and heroin addicts
Aged ten, Jonathan Tepper was manning phones and scheduling deliveries at his parents’ drug rehabilitation centre in San Blas, Madrid – ‘a rescue shop within a yard of hell’
Forgetting was the best defence for the Kindertransport refugees
Alfred and Doris Moritz remained largely silent about their persecution in Nazi Germany, having tried their best to erase the memory, according to their son Michael
Mark Haddon attempts to exorcise the memory of a loveless childhood
Between a father who designed abattoirs and a callous, unresponsive mother, Haddon is left depression-prone, taking a perverse pleasure in envisaging catastrophe
How ‘bad’ does a mother have to be to lose custody of her children?
In a bitter dispute in the family court, Lara Feigel is informed that her ‘wilful’ insistence on writing books is a clear indication that she is not putting her children first
