Memoir
The ruthless politics of Pakistan — and the curse of being a Bhutto
Hours after Benazir Bhutto arrived back in Pakistan on 18 October 2007, two bombs exploded near the bullet-proof truck carrying…
Where time stands still: a Himalayan pilgrimage
The region of Dolpo in Nepal forms part of a border zone between that country and China in the central…
Sarah Maslin Nir enjoys the rides of a lifetime
The appeal of a book called Horse Crazy risks being limited to those who are. Yet many moments in Sarah…
De Profundis: the agony of filming Oscar Wilde’s last years
Philip Hensher admires a witty account of the horrors of modern film-making
Too many of our children are battling severe depression
Christopher Hitchens once said that women just aren’t as funny as men and Caitlin Moran believed him. But that was…
French lessons, with tears: inside a Lyonnais kitchen
You can’t say he didn’t warn us. In the final sentence of his previous book, Heat, a joyously gluttonous exploration…
Where will our inventions lead?
When reviewers say that some new book reminds them of some famous old book, it often ends up as a…
Bringing up Benzene: Charlie Gilmour adopts a magpie
One day a baby bird falls from its nest into an oily scrapyard in Bermondsey, south London and seems unlikely…
When sexism was routine: the life of the female reporter in 1970s London
This book made me almost weep with nostalgia, but heaven knows what today’s snowflakes will make of it. Fleet Street…
What Barbara Black’s choice of friends says about her
Gstaad I’m not usually nonplussed, but this is very strange: the memoir of Barbara Black, the wife of my…
The skeleton is key to solving past mysteries
One hot summer’s morning, as a nine-year-old girl living on the rim of a Scottish loch in the hotel owned…
Treasures or clutter? The problem of knowing what to keep
Every so often the past makes a pass at you. An old school report, a train ticket, a curl from…
When the King of the Delta Blues came home — the family life of Robert Johnson
Whatever would Robert Johnson, self-styled King of the Delta Blues, have made of the Black Lives Matter movement? His was…
Part Beat, part hippy, part punk: the gay life of John Giorno
John Giorno, who died last year, was a natural acolyte: he needed a superior being to set him in motion.…
‘I was frightened every single day’: the perils of guarding Stalin
In Russian, the proverb ‘Ignorance is bliss’ translates as ‘The less you know, the better you sleep’. For those who…
One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure
All it takes to turn a cast-off into a prized possession can be a bit of imagination. To a passerby,…
The dark underbelly of New Orleans revealed by Hurricane Katrina
Home, as James Baldwin wrote, is perhaps ‘not a place but simply an irrevocable condition’. Sarah M. Broom’s National Book…
If you spent a day at Action Park you took your life in your hands
Before reading this book, the only thing I knew about Action Park was that it had lent its name to…
Good memoir-writing should also be self-critical
A book about breaking confidences, not to mention friendships, rather begs the same in return. Reading Anne Applebaum’s brief memoir…
Natalie Wood’s death remains a mystery
Are all children of famous parents told they must have a book in them? Since Allegra Huston’s wonderful memoir Love…
Finder and keeper: two family memoirs reviewed
What can we ever know about our family’s past? How do we love those closest to us when doing so…
Keeping poker-faced is no use – it’s the hands that give the game away
This is not a rip-roaring, gonzo gambling adventure. By page 66 this cautious, thoughtful author has still never played a…
From bashful teenager to supermodel: Susanna Moore’s fairytale memoir
There’s a kind of writing about LA that I am a sucker for. Gossipy, lyrical, with a surface of affectless…
How I finally came to terms with my sister’s death
‘Grief is the price we pay for love,’ the Queen once wrote. This memoir is steeped in the pain of…
My mother — as I remember her best
Nine cups of milky Nescafé Gold Blend a day; a low-tar cigarette smouldering; a hot-water-bottle always on her lap; the…
