More from Books
Kapows and wisecracks: Fight Me, by Austin Grossman, reviewed
A mild-manned academic with special powers joins forces with three similarly gifted friends to defeat the Dark Adversary, Sinistro
At last we see Henry VIII’s wives as individuals
Specialist knowledge of Tudor portraiture, book bindings, music and jewellery enables us to see each woman anew, possessed of a distinct life and afterlife
The diary of a dying man: Graham Caveney’s poignant cancer memoir
With months to live, Caveney looks back on his childhood, muses on favourite writers, decries NHS underfunding and rejoices in his beloved partner, Emma
Jam-packed with treasures: the eccentric Sir John Soane’s Museum
The delightfully higgledy-piggledy display of antiquities, filling walls from floor to ceiling, may have been inspired by the Piranesi prints Soane also collected
The sheer drudgery of professional tennis
The most surprising thing about Conor Niland’s bruising account of his tennis career is that he emerges with his sanity intact
The costly legacy of Margaret Thatcher’s monetarism
As Thatcher’s economic private secretary in the first years of her government, Tim Lankester is well qualified to analyse the controversial policy and its effects
The English lieutenant’s Frenchwoman: the tragic story of Adèle Hugo
Mark Bostridge’s obsession with Victor Hugo’s beautiful daughter almost rivals her own infatuation with Albert Pinson, the naval officer she pursued around the world
A Native American tragedy: Wandering Stars, by Tommy Orange, reviewed
Shocked to find that his Cheyenne forebears had been imprisoned in Florida, Orange was inspired to write a story of displacement and abuse spanning generations
The ordeal of sitting for my father Lucian Freud
Rose Boyt describes posing naked over many nights – supplied with purple hearts by Freud to keep her awake – and her shock on finally seeing the result
Why must we be in constant battle with the ocean?
As we continue to fill the depths with plastic and radioactive waste, our coastlines are increasingly battered by tsunamis and erosion
‘A group of deranged idiots’ – how the Soviets saw the Avant-Gardists
First welcomed, then vilified, by Lenin, Russian artists such as Malevich, Tatlin, Kandinsky and Chagall would find their only real supporters in the West
Second life: Playboy, by Constance Debré, reviewed
Having abandoned her marriage and her career as a lawyer, Debré re-emerges as a lesbian, a writer, and a seducer equal to Casanova
Bayes’s Theorem: the mathematical formula that ‘explains the world’
An obscure 18th-century Presbyterian minister’s insights into statistics are still valued today in making strategic economic decisions and forecasts
Did the Duchess of Windsor fake the theft of her own jewels?
When Wallis’s jewellery collection disappeared from under the bed one night in Surrey in 1946, was this a misfortune, or carelessness, or planned fraud?
When Stalin was the lesser of two evils
Churchill detested Stalin, but Britain and the US needed his help against an even worse enemy. Giles Milton reveals the true nature of the Big Three’s dysfunctional relationship
Haunted by the past: Winterberg’s Last Journey, by Jaroslav Rudis, reviewed
A garrulous nonagenarian and his patient carer make a long train trip to Sarajevo, hoping to solve a decades-old murder mystery
China’s role in Soviet policy-making
Stalin and his successors’ struggle with the US and China reflected conflicting Soviet ambitions to be a superpower and to lead world revolution, says Sergey Radchenko
A tragedy waiting to happen: Tiananmen Square, by Lai Wen, reviewed
A moving coming-of-age novel sees a shy, introverted girl finding friends and freedom at Beijing university – until the authorities begin their murderous clamp-down
Heroines of antiquity – from Minoan Crete to Boudica’s Britain
Daisy Dunn’s ‘history of antiquity written through women’ includes warrior princesses, scheming matriarchs, poets, priestesses and tragic nymphs
Visitants from the past: The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley, reviewed
An experimental project transports people across centuries. Lieutenant Graham Gore, an Arctic explorer whisked from the 1840s to present-day London, is not overly impressed
My summer of love with God’s gift
Studying in Russia in 1994, Viv Groskop falls in love with a Ukrainian rock guitarist named Bogdan Bogdanovich and accompanies him on a visit home
The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
Elizabeth I’s refusal to name an heir resulted in many claimants to the English throne in 1603 – with the son of the Queen of Scots finally prevailing
Will the photo of your lost loved one be replaced by a chatty robot?
It seems entirely possible that AI simulacra could be fashioned from the digital remains we now inadvertently leave behind, says Carl Öhman
My brilliant friend and betrayer, Inigo Philbrick
Orlando Whitfield remains tortured by his association with the charming art dealer convicted of wire fraud worth $86 million in 2022. But whose story is it to tell?
The glamour of grime: revisionist westerns of the 1970s
The success of Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 sparked Hollywood’s interest in making more modern-day westerns and road movies, with no clear boundaries between good and evil
