John Preston

Behind the scenes at the Brighton bombing

24 October 2015 9:00 am

Sadly, I can’t see it catching on, but one of the notable things about Jonathan Lee’s new novel is that…

The Etonian peer who became an assistant to a Mexican commie

18 October 2014 9:00 am

The lefty hereditary peer has few equals as a figure of fun, in life or literature. The late Tony Benn…

The author’s father didn’t want you to read this book. It’s hard to understand why

19 July 2014 9:00 am

There were several times when reading A Dog’s Life that I felt as if I’d fallen into a time warp.…

‘Jeanne arranged for a Marie Antoniette lookalike to linger coyly in the undergrowth in the park at Versailles’

The queen, the cardinal and the greatest con France ever saw

14 June 2014 8:00 am

You usually know where you are with a book that promises the story ‘would violate the laws of plausibility’ if…

There's so much mystery around Charles Portis that we're not even clear whether he’s alive

7 June 2014 9:00 am

The American writer, Charles Portis, has had what some novelists — the more purist ones — might regard as an…

Hillary, Obama, Osama — and a hapless Bill

22 February 2014 9:00 am

The actor David Niven was once badgered by the American columnist William F. Buckley to introduce him to Marc Chagall,…

Why are Scandinavians so happy when they should be so sad? 

25 January 2014 9:00 am

As I sit here in my Sarah Lund Fair Isle sweater, polishing my boxed sets of Borgen and nibbling on…

Simon Winchester slides off the map

14 December 2013 9:00 am

This book begins with Simon Winchester becoming a US citizen two years ago: ‘I swore a solemn oath before a…

Curtains for kitty! How to care for cats — and how to kill them

7 December 2013 9:00 am

The New Yorker has always had a peculiar affinity with cats, perhaps because they have a lot in common —…

Landseer’s portrait of Queen Victoria riding in Windsor Home Park four years after the death of Prince Albert

Queen Victoria, by Matthew Dennison - review

12 October 2013 9:00 am

When Prince Albert died in 1861, aged 42, Queen Victoria, after briefly losing the use of her legs, ordered that…

Move Along, Please, by Mark Mason - review

28 September 2013 9:00 am

Mrs Thatcher was widely believed to have said that ‘any man over the age of 26 who finds himself on…

Magic, by Ricky Jay - review

3 August 2013 9:00 am

People, they say, want different things from a book over the summer than they do the rest of the year.…