Bertie takes on the Black Shorts: Jeeves and the King of Clubs, by Ben Schott, reviewed
In 2016, inspired by reports that Donald Trump’s butler had recommended the assassination of Barack Obama, Ben Schott wrote a…
When mother killed the plumber — and Nellie Melba came round to sing
Here’s a pair of little books — one even littler than the other — by Robin Dalton (née Eakin), a…
Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen reminds me of Nabokov
Eileen is an accomplished, disturbing and creepily funny first novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, the latest darling of the Paris Review,…
The art of getting busted
The Art of Smuggling comes garlanded with fraternal encomia from Howard ‘Mr Nice’ Marks, Phil Sparrowhawk (author of Grass) and…
Jack the Ripper unmasked again
The Whitechapel Fiend is a psychic conduit for the vilest aspects of Victorian sex and class, and a creature mainly…
Gore Vidal, wannabe aristocrat and proud degenerate
History for Gore Vidal was a vehicle to be ridden in triumph, perhaps as in an out-take from Ben-Hur, which…
The fast, furious life of Max Mosley
Max Mosley’s autobiography has been much anticipated: by the motor racing world, by the writers and readers of tabloid newspapers,…
How to kill a hippo, cure seasickness, get rid of fleas? Our ancestors had some wild ideas ...
As Dear Mary so wittily demonstrates, our need for advice is perennial. But fashions change. Mary would probably take issue…
Touring America in Steinbeck’s footsteps
In 1960 John Steinbeck set off with his poodle Charley to drive around the United States in a truck equipped…
From head-shrinking to skull-seeking: a history of the severed head
A severed head, argues Frances Larson in her sprightly new book, is ‘simultaneously a person and a thing… an apparently…
Was John Cleese ever funny?
Like many of my generation I was enchanted by the surrealistic irreverence of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, until I overheard…
Enjoy gin but don’t read books? Or read them only while drinking gin? This is the book for you
Gin Glorious Gin: How Mother’s Ruin Became the Spirit of London is a jaunty and diverting history of ‘a wonderful…
James Bond's secret: he's Jamaican
Lewis Jones on Ian Fleming’s Jamaican retreat and the inspiration it provided for the Bond novels
Wealth is no guarantee of happiness. Look at the Sackville-Wests
When Robert Sackville-West was writing Inheritance (2010), his history of Knole and the Sackvilles, he was ‘struck’, as he recalls…
Lost Kerouac that should have stayed lost
In 1944, when he was 22, Jack Kerouac lost a manuscript — in a taxi, as he thought, but probably…
Finally, a celebrity memoir worth reading
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
'A little bit of rape is good for a man's soul': the outrageous life of Norman Mailer
Heroically brave and mad, prodigious in his industry and appetites, Norman Mailer was an altogether excessive figure. Since his death…
When Britain Burned the White House, by Peter Snow - review
Peter Snow explains that he decided to look into this extraordinary story when he realised how few people knew about…
The Unwinding, by George Packer - review
The Unwinding is a rather classy addition to the thriving genre of American apocalypse porn. The basic thesis can be…
