Pregnant silence
Brian Sewell once wrote an article about abortion headlined: ‘Women, the killers in our midst.’ He got an awful lot…
Three daemons in a boat
Philip Pullman’s new k, the prequel to his Northern Lights series — the one north Oxford academics very much prefer…
Cathedral of creation
Sometimes, it pays to rediscover what’s already under your nose. I’ve been umpteen times to the Natural History Museum but…
Sinister summer reading for children
Martin Stewart’s Riverkeep (Penguin, £7.99) has a list of books and writers on the cover: Moby-Dick, The Wizard of Oz,…
The best children’s authors of 2015 — after David Walliams
The easy way round buying books for children at Christmas is just to get them the latest David Walliams and…
We’re not more genderfluid now. We’re just duller about it
Sex has always been less binary than it looks – but we’ve never been this boring about it
Green djinns and a green boy: the best summer reading for children
It’s the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland — cue an explosion of editions of the book, a new biography…
How come our cash-strapped universities can afford so many administrators?
At Oxford and elsewhere, university administration is out of control
Virtual reality versus real reality: wisdom (and motorcycle maintenance) from Matthew Crawford
Bit of Kant, bit of Kierkegaard, bit of motorcycle maintenance. That’s one take on The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew…
Under Harry Potter’s spell: most children’s books have become shamelessly derivative, says Melanie McDonagh
Go to any bookshop — always supposing you’re fortunate enough to have any left in your neck of the woods…
Love child or bastard: the lottery of being born on the wrong side of the blanket
My father was handed over a shop counter when he was a day old. His aunt had tried to pass…
Grimms’ fairy tales: the hardcore version
Child murder, domestic slavery, abusive families, cannibalism and intergenerational hatred — what could be better for the festive fireside than…
The best children’s books of 2014
If it’s all right with you, I’d like to launch a campaign please. Right here. You may be wanting me…
The cult of 'mindfulness'
Separating meditation from faith might not be as harmless as it seems
What Shami regards as right isn’t necessarily what is right
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty and omnipresent media personality, is on the cover of her book.…
When Irish nationalism meant sexual adventure
One of the easiest mistakes to make about history is to assume that the past is like the recent past,…
Yotam Ottolenghi: the Saatchi brothers of vegetable PR
It would be a mistake to treat Plenty More, the new cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi, merely as a collection of…
Churchgoing is good for you (even if you don’t believe in God)
And that’s true whether or not you believe in God
Recipe for a modern baker: first, move to Hoxton
If I were the kind of person who invited people to come and have a bite to eat that very…
The best new children's books
A children’s author and illustrator, Jonathan Emmet, created a stir recently by saying that women are effectively gatekeepers of children’s…
Did most women want the vote?
The suffragettes’ opponents deserve to be remembered sympathetically
Paris
No city really multitasks like Paris, shorthand for romance, culture, fashion, gastronomy and the kind of street life you find…
Secrets of Candleford: the real Flora Thompson
Melanie McDonagh on Flora Thompson, whose revealing account of rural Oxfordshire life at the turn of the 19th century became a literary classic
Forgive me, Father
What Catholics really talk about in the confession box
François Hollande - all the president's women
Hollande’s affair demonstrates that the French are becoming more puritanical about monogamy
