Lead book review

Vaughan Williams’s genius is now beyond dispute

24 September 2022 9:00 am

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s towering position in our national life is now beyond dispute – and can only grow, says Simon Heffer

The sheer tedium of life at Colditz

17 September 2022 9:00 am

Given the prisoners’ histories, it’s not surprising there were so many attempted breakouts from Colditz, says Clare Mulley

Ian McEwan’s capacity for reinvention is astonishing

10 September 2022 9:00 am

Ian McEwan’s latest novel is unusually long and autobiographical. It’s surprising in other ways, too, says Claire Lowdon

An old Encyclopaedia Britannica is a work to cherish

3 September 2022 9:00 am

The encyclopaedias of the past were volumes to be savoured – even if they often contained unsavoury views, says Rose George

How the quarrelsome ‘Jena set’ paved the way for Hitler

27 August 2022 9:00 am

Frances Wilson describes a group of self-obsessed intellectuals united by mutual loathing in a small university town in the 1790s

Nothing is certain in Russia, where the past is constantly rewritten

20 August 2022 9:00 am

Nothing is certain in a country where the past is constantly rewritten, says Owen Matthews

Our long, vulnerable childhoods may be the key to our success

13 August 2022 9:00 am

Could our long journey to adulthood actually be the key to our success, wonders Sam Leith

The Nazi influence in Egypt

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Justin Marozzi finds Egypt teeming with Germans after the second world war

Lord Northcliffe’s war of words

30 July 2022 9:00 am

Andrew Lycett on the pugnacious British press baron dedicated to fighting the first world war through newsprint

The impossibility of separating Scotland from Britain

23 July 2022 9:00 am

A ‘global’ history of Scotland must, by its very nature, be one of Britain and Empire too, says Alex Massie

What is the metaverse, actually?

16 July 2022 9:00 am

Big tech might tell us it’s what’s coming next but as yet there’s no real use for it, says James Ball

‘Jerusalem’ is a rousing anthem – but who knows what the words mean?

9 July 2022 9:00 am

‘Jerusalem’ may be our unofficial national anthem, but don’t ask anyone who sings it to tell you what it means, says Philip Hensher

Is Gone with the Wind to blame for Trumpism?

2 July 2022 9:00 am

Selfish, acquisitive, ignorant and vain, Gone with the Wind’s heroine not only resembles Donald Trump – she may even be his role model, says Greg Garrett

Fish that swim backwards – and other natural wonders

25 June 2022 9:00 am

With the technologies at our disposal, we can in fact now know what it’s like to be a bat, says Caspar Henderson

Was Jane Morris a sphinx without a secret?

18 June 2022 9:00 am

Jane Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites’ favourite model, remains as enigmatic as ever, says Frances Wilson

A glimmer of hope for the blue planet

11 June 2022 9:00 am

David Profumo wonders whether newly created marine reserves can really reverse decades of devastation

Is T.S. Eliot’s great aura fading?

4 June 2022 9:00 am

Cracks are beginning to appear in T.S. Eliot’s once unassailable reputation, says Philip Hensher

The lonely genius of Bronislava Nijinska

28 May 2022 9:00 am

Bronislava Nijinska was constantly undermined in her lifetime – most cruelly by her brother, says Sarah Crompton

For ruthless inhumanity, the Bolsheviks were unbeatable

21 May 2022 9:00 am

Sara Wheeler describes the appalling brutality of the Russian Revolution and its far-reaching aftermath

Light and shade in the Holy Land – a century in spectacular images

14 May 2022 9:00 am

Justin Marozzi on the troubled history of a small, much-coveted country

Disregarded for decades, Jean Rhys stayed true to her vision of life

7 May 2022 9:00 am

Jean Rhys lived a vagabond life – but she wrote about gloom and squalor with luminous purity and a poet’s care, says Lucasta Miller

You can make anything up about the royal family and it will be printed as a matter of fact

30 April 2022 9:00 am

Royal gossip is largely invented, says Philip Hensher – but Tina Brown repeats it regardless

Nymphomaniac, fearless campaigner, alcoholic – Nancy Cunard was all this and more

23 April 2022 9:00 am

Nancy Cunard’s defiance of convention began early, fuelled by bitter resentment towards her mother, says Jane Ridley

A pure original: the inventive genius of John Donne

16 April 2022 9:00 am

John Donne sounds like nobody else, and his poems invite us to feel that we might know him, says Daniel Swift

Norman Scott has the last word on a very English scandal

9 April 2022 9:00 am

Norman Scott’s long-anticipated memoir reveals the British Establishment at its worst, says Roger Lewis