Paris
Diary
It was quite fun being named as the new writer of 007 — although actually I’d make a lousy spy.…
A series of impressionist strokes
When she was four, Anne Sinclair had her portrait painted by Marie Laurencin. It is a charming picture, a little…
A Cubist in New York
The American Jewish artist Max Weber (1881–1961) was born in Belostok in Russia (now Bialystok in Poland), and although he…
From Russia with love
Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya was a literary celebrity in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg. She chose the pen-name ‘Teffi’ because it was androgynous,…
Amour fou
This novel is based on the life of Charles Baudelaire and the relationship he enjoyed — or endured — with…
Diary
To Paris, for the launch of the French edition of my novel about the Dreyfus affair. As we land, I…
Nights at the Opéra
Stephen Clarke lives in Paris and writes book with titles such as 1,000 Years of Annoying the French. Dirty Bertie…
Recent crime fiction
Louise Welsh rarely repeats herself, a quality to celebrate in a crime novelist. Her latest novel, A Lovely Way to…
The stain of luxury
In Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen did a good job of showing how foolish it is to be obsessed by…
Adventures in gay Paree
In his preface to The Joy of Gay Sex (revised and expanded third edition), Edmund White praises the ‘kinkier’ aspects…
A choice of first novels
The intensely lyrical Ghost Moth is set in Belfast in 1969, as the Troubles begin and when Katherine, housewife and…
In praise of the Emperor
Roderick Conway Morris on the influence and legacy of Augustus
Sleeping with the enemy
Around 200 Englishwomen lived through the German Occupation of Paris. Nicholas Shakespeare’s aunt Priscilla was one. Men in the street…
Flight of the imagination
Towards the end of his life, Georges Braque described his vision in the following terms: ‘No object can be tied…
The stuff of dreams
The exhibition The Renaissance and Dream at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris (until 26 January 2014) explores how artists…
Gay abandon
Richard Davenport-Hines on the charmed, dizzy world of the multi-talented Colette
Buying a pup
The contrast could not have been more acute. It came the day after a press release from Christie’s New York…
