Narrative feature

From Stephen Collins’s Some Comics

A choice of humorous books

20 November 2014 3:00 pm

Nancy Mitford would not call them ‘toilet books’, that’s for certain. Loo books? Lavatory books? One or two people I…

Georges Simenon aged 30 (left) and Jean Gabin (right) in the 1958 film Maigret Tend un Piège — to be shown as part of a season of Maigret films at the Barbican, London (4–26 October). For details visit www.barbican.org.uk.

A salute to Georges Simenon

20 September 2014 9:00 am

The full series of the Maigret novels, together with some of the romans durs, are being republished by Penguin Classics at a rate of one per month. Patrick Marnham salutes a magnificent long-term project.

And one more for the road – excerpts from Roddy Doyle’s latest

20 September 2014 9:00 am

From Two More Pints by Roddy Doyle (Cape, £7.99, pp. 114, ISBN 9780224101899).

And one more for the road

18 September 2014 1:00 pm

9-12-12— See the spacer died. —Wha’ spacer? —The Sky at Night fella. —Bobby Moore. —Patrick Moore. —That’s him, yeah. Did…

Homage to Simenon

18 September 2014 1:00 pm

One hundred years ago an 11-year-old boy called Georges Simenon was getting accustomed to the presence of the German army…

And one more for the road

18 September 2014 1:00 pm

9-12-12— See the spacer died. —Wha’ spacer? —The Sky at Night fella. —Bobby Moore. —Patrick Moore. —That’s him, yeah. Did…

Georges Simenon aged 30 (left) and Jean Gabin (right) in the 1958 film Maigret Tend un Piège — to be shown as part of a season of Maigret films at the Barbican, London (4–26 October). For details visit www.barbican.org.uk.

Homage to Simenon

18 September 2014 1:00 pm

One hundred years ago an 11-year-old boy called Georges Simenon was getting accustomed to the presence of the German army…

Peter and Ian Fleming as boys at Joyce Grove (Peter is on the left)

Ian Fleming: cruel? Selfish? Misogynistic? Nonsense, says his step-daughter

23 August 2014 9:00 am

Between the brothers Peter and Ian Fleming, Fionn Morgan wonders who was the better writer and who the better man

The colonel and the commander

21 August 2014 1:00 pm

7 August 1964 4 Old Mitre Court, EC4 Darling Fifi, A thousand thanks for your sweet letter & for Heaven’s…

Peter and Ian Fleming as boys at Joyce Grove (Peter is on the left)

The colonel and the commander

21 August 2014 1:00 pm

7 August 1964 4 Old Mitre Court, EC4 Darling Fifi, A thousand thanks for your sweet letter & for Heaven’s…

‘He thought he could have made it as a visual artist — if only more people had liked his work.’ Above: John Arlott reading (1977) and Kathy and Jessy (1963)

The gentle intoxications of Laurie Lee

28 June 2014 9:00 am

On Laurie Lee’s centenary, Jeremy Treglown wonders how the writer’s legacy stands up

Extreme poetic licence

26 June 2014 1:00 pm

He was always lucky, and he knew it: lucky in the secure rural intimacy of the upbringing described in Cider…

‘He thought he could have made it as a visual artist — if only more people had liked his work.’ Above: John Arlott reading (1977) and Kathy and Jessy (1963)

Extreme poetic licence

26 June 2014 1:00 pm

He was always lucky, and he knew it: lucky in the secure rural intimacy of the upbringing described in Cider…

The success of the Flashman series owed something to the inspired choice of Arthur Barbosa as designer of the covers

The derring-do that created Flashman

24 May 2014 9:00 am

Christopher Maclehose recalls his dealings with the author of the Flashman novels, George Macdonald Fraser

The road to bestsellerdom

22 May 2014 1:00 pm

I met George Macdonald Fraser when he was the features editor of the Glasgow Herald. He was a very good…

The success of the Flashman series owed something to the inspired choice of Arthur Barbosa as designer of the covers

The road to bestsellerdom

22 May 2014 1:00 pm

I met George Macdonald Fraser when he was the features editor of the Glasgow Herald. He was a very good…

One of three portraits of Dylan Thomas by Alfred Janes

Dylan Thomas: boozer, womaniser, sponger, charlatan — or master craftsman?

10 May 2014 9:00 am

In Dylan Thomas’s centenary year, Hilly Janes recalls her father’s friendship with the poet and his visits to the Boat House at Laugharne

Portrait of the artist

8 May 2014 1:00 pm

Who the hell was Dylan Thomas? Boozer, womaniser, sponger, charlatan — or master craftsman, besotted husband, generosity personified and one…

One of three portraits of Dylan Thomas by Alfred Janes

Portrait of the artist

8 May 2014 1:00 pm

Who the hell was Dylan Thomas? Boozer, womaniser, sponger, charlatan — or master craftsman, besotted husband, generosity personified and one…

A cult of inspired amateurishness that seized the 60s

3 May 2014 9:00 am

Hugo Williams describes his early association with The Exploding Galaxy — a group of innovative artists, musicians, poets and dancers that burst on the London scene in the late 1960s

Tripping through psychedelia

1 May 2014 1:00 pm

The Exploding Galaxy flashed brightly in the black-and-white world that was just coming to an end as I was growing…

Tripping through psychedelia

1 May 2014 1:00 pm

The Exploding Galaxy flashed brightly in the black-and-white world that was just coming to an end as I was growing…

Recent crime fiction

26 April 2014 9:00 am

Louise Welsh rarely repeats herself, a quality to celebrate in a crime novelist. Her latest novel, A Lovely Way to…

Recent crime fiction

24 April 2014 1:00 pm

Louise Welsh rarely repeats herself, a quality to celebrate in a crime novelist. Her latest novel, A Lovely Way to…

Recent crime fiction

24 April 2014 1:00 pm

Louise Welsh rarely repeats herself, a quality to celebrate in a crime novelist. Her latest novel, A Lovely Way to…