Memoir
The great arbitrator
‘The law,’ according to W.S. Gilbert’s Lord Chancellor, ‘is the true embodiment of everything that’s excellent’ and, by common consent,…
Remember forget-me-nots?
‘There are a great many ways of holding on to our sanity amid the vices and follies of the world,’…
An interplay of voices
Margo Jefferson’s Constructing a Nervous System compresses memoir and cultural criticism into one slim, explosive volume, and in doing so…
Into thin air
Mark Vanhoenacker dreams of my nightmares. Ever since he was a young boy, he fantasised about piloting airplanes. Ever since…
The happy hoarder
If you were hoping for an autobiography this isn’t it. Jarvis Cocker calls it ‘an inventory’ and insists: ‘This is…
Onwards and upwards
The great age of the Scottish autodidact must have ended a century ago, but it had a prodigious impact while…
Time is running out
This is not a book about tennis. Roger Federer appears early on, trailed by the obligatory question ‘When will he…
The keys to success
Every Good Boy Does Fine – a banal phrase that also just happens to be the key to limitless wonder.…
Cleopatra on the warpath
These Bodies of Water begins dramatically (as befits a book derived from Sabrina Mahfouz’s Royal Court show A History of…
Truth in small matters
‘I can’t cook,’ writes the historian Karina Urbach, ‘which is probably why it took me so long to realise that…
Enough to make anyone weep
When it comes to education, I’m in two minds, maybe three. I was sent to private schools, including, for my…
That way madness lies
There is a trend for books in which academics write personally about their engagement with literature. Examples include Lara Feigel’s…
Dirty rotten tricks
In 2010, Mark Kennedy, a tattooed social justice warrior, was exposed as an undercover police officer. In this guise he…
Dogged by disaster
Norman Scott’s long-anticipated memoir reveals the British Establishment at its worst, says Roger Lewis
Last-minute reprieve
A bully-boy leader. A corrupt, out-of-touch regime. A twisted reading of history. An unprovoked, military-led landgrab. A domestic disinformation blitz.…
Gone but not forgotten
Take a walk in the English countryside and you get the impression that little has changed. The churches and farmhouses,…
An awful warning
Sins of My Father begins with an ending. Describing her 61-year-old parent’s final desperate flight from a life of vibrant…
The heart bleeds
‘CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY,’ the freshly issued death certificate read. In the craziness and shock of grief for…
Absurdities abound
For 20 years of my adult life, I moonlighted as a private tutor. After a full day in the office…
Finding a voice
Howard Jacobson, who turns 80 this year, published his first novel aged 40. Since then he has produced roughly a…
Family misfortunes
The journalist and broadcaster Christina Patterson’s memoir begins promisingly. She has a talent for vivid visual description, not least: ‘We…
A game of life and death
No one boards an overladen dinghy and sets out across a choppy sea without very good reason. Laden into migrant…
The past is ever present
‘One morning in late October 1988,’ begins TheLong Song of Tchaikovsky Street, ‘this dapper-looking guy from Leiden asked me if…
And on it goes
A question looms throughout this book: is it better to die rather than experience the wrath of a publicly shamed…
True grit
In her memoir Time on Rock, Anna Fleming charts her progress from ‘terrified novice’ to ‘competent leader’ as she scales…
