Existentialism and taboo sex scream of youth trying too hard
How many debut collections does it take to stand up to one of the most accomplished short-story writers of the…
Matilda Bathurst chooses the best recent short story collections
‘I just wanted the damn story to ask the right questions,’ sighs a disaffected journalist in Jack Livings’s debut collection…
The secret life of the short story
The short story likes to play the underdog. Famously unfavoured by publishers, it has none of the commercial clout of…
What was Allen Ginsberg doing in Wales? LSD
‘Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,/ daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,/ grass shimmers green…’ The characteristic…
Fairytales of racism
A preview of Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird appeared in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists issue in April last…
Ann Patchett's new book will win you over, in spite of yourself
Ann Patchett’s novels revel in the tightly constructed ecosystems imagined for their characters: an opera singer besieged among diplomats in…
Braque in full flight
Towards the end of his life, Georges Braque described his vision in the following terms: ‘No object can be tied…
Dreaming in the Renaissance
The exhibition The Renaissance and Dream at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris (until 26 January 2014) explores how artists…
Notes on…The house museums of Paris
It doesn’t matter how many times they expand the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay, Paris’s past is so colossally rich…
