Middlemarch
Public lies and secret truths
Smith’s sweeping historical novel spans slavery in Jamaica in the 1770s and the marathon trials of the Tichborne Claimant in London a century later
The Literary Disco podcast made me want to throw my laptop at the wall
One of the stranger things that happened in the period just before lockdown was the sudden disappearance of audiences from…
From Middlemarch to Mickey Mouse: a short history of The Spectator’s books and arts pages
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
‘It’s good to chop out the boring bits!’: Andrew Davies on adapting War and Peace
What does Andrew Davies have to say to those who accuse him of gratuitous rumpy-pumpy in his adaptations of the classics? Stephen Smith finds out
Horse racing, Sancerre and escaped lobsters
A stint in dry dock — the ‘dry’ literally — has one advantage. There is time for lots of long…
