Saint Joan and saucy Eve: a single woman split in two
The relationship between Joan Didion and Eve Babitz is memorably captured in Lily Anolik’s red-hot, propulsive portrait of two warring writers who were once close friends
A GP diagnosed me with ‘acute anxiety’ – only to exacerbate it
When Tom Lee suffers a breakdown after the birth of his first child, a doctor warns him against the only drug that proves effective, further adding to his distress
There’s nothing shameful about hypochondria
Caroline Crampton describes the real agonies of people obsessed with their fragility, revealing that her own hypochondria stems from a childhood cancer diagnosis
The horrors of dining with a Roman emperor
Elagabalus’s suffocating party tricks may have been exaggerated, but Domitian’s sinister, death-themed feasts could be seen as a dictator’s flamboyant threat
Ireland’s most notorious murderer still casts a disturbing spell
After months of conversations with Ireland’s most notorious murderer, Mark O’Connell got both more and less than he bargained for, says Frances Wilson
Triumph and disaster in the War of Jenkins’ Ear
David Grann returns to the greatest sea story ever told: of Captain Anson’s piratical feat, and ‘the mutiny that never was’ aboard the Wager
How the quarrelsome ‘Jena set’ paved the way for Hitler
Frances Wilson describes a group of self-obsessed intellectuals united by mutual loathing in a small university town in the 1790s
Was Jane Morris a sphinx without a secret?
Jane Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites’ favourite model, remains as enigmatic as ever, says Frances Wilson
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…
Yours disgusted, H.G. Wells: the young writer finds marriage insufferable
After a wretched childhood, H.G. Wells was ruthless in making up for lost time, says Frances Wilson
How does David Sedaris get away with saying the unsayable?
These aren’t diaries in the sense that Chips Channon kept diaries, or Samuel Pepys. They aren’t diaries at all, beyond…
We’ve embraced William Blake without having any idea of what he was on about
Whose were those feet in ancient time that walked upon England’s mountains green? That William Blake assumed his readers were…
Stealing the story: A Lonely Man, by Chris Power, reviewed
Robert Prowe has writer’s block. An Englishman reaching middle age, he lives in Berlin with his Swedish wife and their…
What does ownership of land really mean?
At the end of the last century, Simon Winchester bought 123 acres of wooded mountainside in the hamlet of Wassaic,…
Euthanasia sitcom: What Are You Going Through, by Sigrid Nunez, reviewed
What Are You Going Through is both brilliant and mercifully brief. Weighing in at 200-odd pages, it can be read…
A story without redemption: The Lying Life of Adults, by Elena Ferrante, reviewed
‘I don’t at all hate lies,’ Elena Ferrante explained in Frantumaglia, her manifesto for authorial anonymity. ‘I find them useful…
Good biographers make the best companions
Strange, when your own life flatlines, the way in which other lives become suddenly more interesting. I have been retreating…
Excess and incest were meat and drink to the Byrons
Excess, incest and marital misery were in the blood. Frances Wilson uncovers several generations of infamous Byrons
Could Leslie Jamison please stop sitting on the fence?
Leslie Jamison is creating quite a stir in America. Her first collection of essays, The Empathy Exams, went straight to…
Fame made Gabriel García Márquez a pedantic bore
Gerald Martin’s titanic biography of 2010, Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, was the product of 17 years of research and…
Germaine Greer continues to shock and awe
There is an African bird called the ox-pecker with which Germaine Greer, conversant as she is with the natural world,…
The perfect guide to a book everyone should read
‘The Divine Comedy is a book that everyone ought to read,’ according to Jorge Luis Borges, and every Italian has…
The wit and wisdom of Dr Johnson is still of benefit to us all
The most irritating of recent publishing trends must be the literary self-help guide, and Henry Hitchings’s contribution to the genre…
The disappearing acts of Joseph Gray, master of military camouflage
On a night in Paris in 1914, Gertrude Stein was walking with Picasso when the first camouflaged trucks passed by.…
Two enquiring minds
Samuel Pepys, wrote John Evelyn, was ‘universally beloved, hospitable, generous, learned in many things’ and ‘skilled in music’. John Evelyn,…
