Lead book review
George and Martha Washington were an odd first First Couple
Frances Wilson on America’s likeable, if unlikely, first First Couple
The four men who averted the Apocalypse
Robert Service’s account of the greatest turning point in modern history is unlikely to be bettered, says Sherard Cowper-Coles
A further selection of books of the year — the best and most overrated of 2015
A further selection of the best and most overrated books of 2015, chosen by our regular reviewers
Books of the Year: the best and most overrated of 2015
Our regular reviewers choose the best and most overrated books of 2015
Julie Burchill vs celebrity memoirs
I learned from this little lot that if one has read The Diary of a Nobody, then one can derive…
The best British short stories — from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith
In this handsome two-volume anthology, Philip Hensher convincingly establishes himself as a world authority on the short story, says Ian Sansom
The real subject of John le Carré’s novels is his conman father Ronnie
John le Carré has been writing about a mirror world for over 50 years — and he’ll continue to do so for as long as his father haunts him, says Andrew Lycett
The swastika was always in plain sight
Ordinary Germans under the Third Reich did have wills of their own, argues Dominic Green. Most actively embraced Nazi ideology, and were aware of the extermination of the Jews. As the war worsened for them, what did they think they were fighting for?
Margaret Thatcher’s most surprising virtue: imagination
Margaret Thatcher’s second administration saw bitter divisions at home, but abroad the breakthrough in Anglo-Soviet relations really did change history, says Philip Hensher
A crushing case for brutalism — with the people left out
Elain Harwood’s flawed but impressive study of modernist architecture manages perfectly to reflect its subject, says David Kynaston
Retracing The Thirty-Nine Steps in Buchan’s beloved Borders
To celebrate the centenary of the publication of The Thirty-Nine Steps William Cook travelled to Tweeddale, where John Buchan spent his youthful summers
An unauthorised, and unconvincing, biography of Ted Hughes
Craig Raine says that Jonathan Bate’s unauthorised biography of Ted Hughes gets it wrong on every level
Shakespeare's London: where all the world really was a stage
Sam Leith on the year 1606, when plague and panic were rife — and all the world really was a stage
The perils of porcelain – and the pleasures of Edmund de Waal
A.S. Byatt on the dark, deadly secrets lurking beneath a calm, white surface
Did Hans Asperger save children from the Nazis — or sell them out?
Simon Baron-Cohen wonders whether the humane Hans Asperger may finally have betrayed the vulnerable children in his care in Nazi-occupied Vienna
The British army’s greatest catastrophe — and its most valuable lesson
Peter Parker spends 24 hours on the bloodsoaked battlefield of the Somme, scene of the British army’s greatest catastrophe
The facts behind France’s most potent modern myth
Patrick Marnham unravels some of the powerful, often conflicting myths surrounding the French Resistance
Physicists have stranger ideas than the most preposterous Old Testament preacher
The beliefs of physicists are infinitely kookier than anything in the Bible, says Alexander Masters
The old-fashioned greatness of Christian Thielemann
Philip Hensher admires an old-fashioned conductor who unashamedly favours the great German composers — and Wagner in particular
The strange history of Willoughbyland, modern-day Suriname
John Gimlette on the strange and superbly told story of Willoughbyland, England’s ‘lost’ colony
Go Set a Watchman should never have been hyped as a ‘landmark new novel’, says Philip Hensher
Philip Hensher on the tangled history of To Kill a Mockingbird’s much-anticipated ‘sequel’
The constant inconstancy that made Italians yearn for fascism
Jan Morris on the inconsistency and paradox that has characterised Italian thought over the centuries — and the desperate search for certainty
The sadist who wrecked New York, and the last of the great biographers
John R. MacArthur on the bureaucratic titan who gratuitously bulldozed a great city and displaced and demoralised half a million of its inhabitants
Good stories of bad Bloomsbury behaviour
Even the Group considered Bunny Garnett and Henrietta Bingham quite ‘wayward’. Their powerful charms appealed to both sexes, says Anne Chisholm — and they even managed a fling together
Liberty, philosophy and 246 types of cheese
The French have always favoured grand, elegant abstractions about the human condition, says Ruth Scurr. It’s part of their national identity
