Writing
Does knotted string constitute ‘writing’?
What particularly excites Silvia Ferrara, the author of The Greatest Invention, is not language per se but writing – that…
Is this Premier Inn all I’ll be remembered for?
It’s fairly commonplace for people to wonder what, if anything, they’ll be remembered for. I’m going to be 59 later…
Howard Jacobson superbly captures the terrible cost of becoming a writer
Howard Jacobson, who turns 80 this year, published his first novel aged 40. Since then he has produced roughly a…
What Putin has in common with Hitler
We are always cautioned against comparing a modern political event with those that led up to the second world war.…
The delicate business of writing poetry
Living, as Clive James put it, under a life sentence, and having refused chemotherapy, I find I respond to the…
P.J. O’Rourke’s death marks the end of a great satirical era
Fond memories of the great satirist
The hypocrisy of actors
I’ve been keeping a journal for nearly 60 years. There are piles of the damn things in archives and covered…
The moment I fell in love with music
I’ve lived in Chelsea for the past 35 years. Since 2002, I’ve photographed everything I find interesting here — churches,…
Why is Microsoft offended by ‘Mrs Thatcher’?
The interregnum between incumbents is a well-known and often elongated process in the Church of England. I have recently witnessed…
How we rediscovered the charms of haiku
They got me through the past year
Fight club: when book groups turn nasty
When book groups turn nasty
Why I became a writer
Whenever I give talks to children about my books they always ask who inspired me to be a writer. I…
The life of an ambassador’s wife
‘One day,’ she writes, ‘we had the Minister for Northern Ireland for the night. He arrived wearing a kilt, which…
Why I gave up writing fiction
When, three years ago, I announced my retirement from writing fiction, the only thing that surprised me was the surprise…
Why do my American friends keep asking me to marry them?
My diary has been filled with dental appointments, reflecting a truism that American dentists pray for British teeth. The tally…
Letters: The beauty of brick
The Union in peril Sir: Fraser Nelson (‘The great pretender’, 15 May) writes that it has never been easier to…
The Proustian power of handwriting
Towards the end of April, my mum sent me a letter. She doesn’t write as a rule — we speak…
The joy and suffering of writing a book
Spring is coming. There was snow in the garden till last week, here in Canada, where I have been spending…
The poetic beauty of science
Safe spaces, diversity quotas, gender-neutral pronouns, culturally relative facts, heteronormative hegemony. Are my right-on credentials right on enough? Am I…
How I’d write Covid: The Thriller
How I’d write Covid: The Thriller
John le Carré’s wild MI6 Christmas parties
In the middle of December, for reasons I’m coming to, I woke early in a posh hotel. I lay semi-dozing…
‘People confuse sadness with darkness’: the complicated world of Mary Gaitskill
An interview with the American novelist Mary Gaitskill
City of gold: Peter Ackroyd on the undimmed spirit of London
Peter Ackroyd on the undimmed spirit of London
We don't want pandemic novels – we want gentle escapism
I’m often asked when I’ll write a pandemic novel. I’m not sure I’d ever be tempted, though the backdrop of…
Bangkok’s unravelling was easy to see coming
Three years ago I sat down to write a novel set in my adopted home city. Placing its claustrophobic action…
