Prince Charles’ irresponsible support for homeopathy
You might have thought that many of the world’s scientists and doctors had come to an unequivocal decision on homeopathy:…
The snake-oil salesmen who prey on schizophrenics
Schizophrenia is the psychiatric illness about which the most misconceptions abound. It’s not so much the ‘negative’ symptoms that cause…
Should adoptive parents be allowed to pick and choose their child?
The sorrow of involuntary childlessness is profound. The award-winning novelist Patrick Flanery and his husband knew this pain. Their craving…
Fiction for the #MeToo age: Victory, by James Lasdun, reviewed
James Lasdun is my favourite ‘should be famous’ writer, his work extraordinarily taut and compelling. His eye-boggling psychological thrillers are…
A disturbing psychological experiment involving secrecy, small boys and sharp knives
Gina Perry is the eminent psychologist who blew apart Stanley Milgram’s shocking revelations from his 1961 research. Milgram had caused…
From Louis XIV to the Shah of Iran: celebrities under the surgeon’s knife
Powerful memoirs by such eloquent doctors as Oliver Sacks, Atul Gawande, Henry Marsh, Gabriel Weston and Paul Kalanithi have whipped…
Stage fright
Patrick McGrath is a master of novels about post-traumatic fragmentation and dissolution, set amid gothic gloom. His childhood years spent…
A Feelgood fairy story
When I wrote for the NME as a schoolgirl in the 1980s, it was recognised that there were musicians who…
When two young Britons go camping in Yosemite their lives are changed for ever
The title of A.D. Miller’s follow-up to his Man Booker shortlisted debut Snowdrops refers not to lovers but to two…
