Stuck on stucco
Whenever the words ‘stucco house’ appear in the newspapers, you can be certain the occupiers have been up to no…
Stuck on stucco
Whenever the words ‘stucco house’ appear in the newspapers, you can be certain the occupiers have been up to no…
Shiver me timbers
Brrrrr, this is a chilly book. Each time a character put on his sealskin kamiks, muskrat hat, wolfskin mittens and…
The Victoria and Albert
Thomas Hardy, while still married to his first wife Emma, but arranging assignations in London with Florence, his second-wife-to-be, used…
The Victoria and Albert
Thomas Hardy, while still married to his first wife Emma, but arranging assignations in London with Florence, his second-wife-to-be, used…
Hush money
The new consumer obsession of my generation isn’t white goods, trainers or designer labels. It is — whisper it —…
Room for inspiration
The curious thing about an art room is that you never remember the look of the place. Each summer, a…
Ice cream
It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…
Everything is illuminated
One could honour God with prayer, of course, and build cathedrals, amass treasuries, turn choirs into stained-glass jewel boxes, carve…
Ice cream
It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…
Everything is illuminated
One could honour God with prayer, of course, and build cathedrals, amass treasuries, turn choirs into stained-glass jewel boxes, carve…
Robots are our friends
We have watched too many-movies. To our cinema-flamed imaginations the robots of the future are silken-voiced and pliant like Scarlett…
Holy visions and dustbins
Woolworth’s spectacles. Pudding-basin haircut, rather sparse. Norfolk jacket. Pyjama cuffs below trouser legs and sleeves. Paints and brushes in an…
Holy visions and dustbins
Woolworth’s spectacles. Pudding-basin haircut, rather sparse. Norfolk jacket. Pyjama cuffs below trouser legs and sleeves. Paints and brushes in an…
Twists, turns and good red herrings
Jessie Burton’s first novel, The Miniaturist, set in 17th-century Amsterdam, read like a lantern-slide show. Her churches were by Pieter…
The happiness police
On a recent sodden weekend walk, I tried to cheer myself up by thinking: it’s not so bad. Not the slugs…
Close encounters
A story John Piper liked to tell — and the one most told about him — is of a morning…
Sound and fury
There was a genteel brouhaha last year — leaders in the Times, letters to the Telegraph, tutting in the galleries…
The London Library
Some rogue has been writing in my bedside book. A fastidious hand has crossed out misspelled words and written neat…
Topsy-turvy
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
Sweet and sour
Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…
Sweet and sour
Dear, good, kind, sacrificing Little Nell. Here she is kneeling by a wayside pond, bonnet pushed back, shoes and stockings…
Look beyond ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in The Hague
What a fate it is to be hung next to the most famous painting in a gallery. To be overlooked,…
Autumn
Each year when I see the first conker of the autumn I think: fire up the ancestral ovens! This incendiary…
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