More from Books
Resolute, dignified and intelligent: Elizabeth II inspired loyalty from the start
Alexander Larman describes how, from 1945 onwards, the House of Windsor set about rebranding itself after a decade of crisis both internal and external
The world’s largest flower is also its ugliest
Known as ‘corpse flower’, the sinister Rafflesia resembles slabs of bloody, white-flecked meat, emits the scent of rotting flesh and eventually subsides into a mass of black slime
The curious influence of Oscar Wilde on Hollywood
After Wilde’s visit to the US in 1882, his philosophy of life became an inspiration to early filmmakers in their revolt against corporate America, Wall Street and provincial pettiness
A voyage of literary discovery: Clara Reads Proust, by Stéphane Carlier, reviewed
A 23-year-old hairdresser casually picks up a copy of Swann’s Way left behind by a client – only to find the novel taking over her life
The true valour needed to go on pilgrimage in Britain
Oliver Smith finds sanctity in remote peninsulas and holy islands, but is less impressed by the tacky ephemera that decorate our more accessible shrines
Boxing clever: Headshot, by Rita Bullwinkel, reviewed
As eight teenage girls progress through a boxing championship in Reno, fighting is shown to be an undeniable, animal part of femininity in this knockout debut novel
Garbriel García Márquez has been ill-served by his sons
Posthumously published against the author’s wishes, Until August should not detract from Marquez’s best work – but it would have been better left as a curiosity in the archives
New light on the New Testament
Candida Moss reveals that many New Testament texts, including St Mark’s Gospel, were penned by enslaved scribes who became influential interpreters of Christian scripture
The healing power of Grasmere
Following in Wordsworth’s footsteps, Esther Rutter finds new self-confidence and happiness in the entrancing surroundings of Dove Cottage
Ghosts of the KKK still haunt American politics
The extreme savagery of the ‘white knights’ may be a thing of the past, but echoes of the Klan were all over the shameful Capitol attack of 2021, says Kristofer Allerfeldt
How ever did the inbred Habsburgs control their vast empire?
For centuries, a line of mentally retarded monarchs managed extraordinary feats of engineering across the world against all odds
The dirty war of Sefton Delmer
Anything to break German morale was allowable in Delmer’s broadcasts from Wavendon Towers – which purported to come from a disgruntled character within Nazi Germany
How much would your family stump up for your ransom?
Researching The Price of Life, Jenny Kleeman interviews Stephen Collet, who describes haggling for a year with the Somali pirates who kidnapped his sister in October 2009
Work, walk, meditate: Practice, by Rosalind Brown, reviewed
An Oxford undergraduate makes a detailed plan for getting the most out of a quiet Sunday in January, but soon starts musing on what it feels like to be distracted
Conning the booktrade connoisseurs
Fuelled by loathing and resentment, Thomas James Wise set about defrauding as many privileged bibliophiles as he could – only to be rumbled by two of their number
You are what you don’t eat
In the past, the ability to preserve food depended largely on people’s means, making Eleanor Barnett’s history of food waste also a history of changing attitudes to poverty
The end of days: It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken, reviewed
‘Don’t try to picture the apocalypse’, advises the novel’s unnamed zombie narrator. ‘Everything looks exactly the way you remembered it.’
The stark horror of Barbara Comyns’s fiction was all too autobiographical
Comyns’s fans have long enjoyed the novels’ macabre details and black humour. Now Avril Horner reveals their disturbing sources
A web of rivalries: The Extinction of Irena Rey, by Jennifer Croft, reviewed
Eight translators gather to work on a novel written by their heroine, Irena Rey. But when she goes missing in a nearby forest, relations between them begin to fray
Dinosaurs, dogma and the Victorian mind
The ‘monsters’ dug from the cliffs of Lyme Regis did not sit well with the literal reading of Genesis – but many other issues contributed to the famed Victorian crisis of faith
The skull beneath the skin: Ghost Pains, by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, reviewed
Pain lurks below the surface of these sardonic short stories. Happiness is fleeting, and ‘we carry death within us like a stone within a fruit’, one narrator observes
The lonely passions of Carson McCullers
McCullers’s acclaimed first novel, written when she was 23, drew her into the orbit of several female writers with whom she fell in love – but it was never reciprocated for long
The many Jesus-like figures of the ancient world
Early Christianity positively welcomed comparisons between Jesus and Socrates, Asclepius, Emperor Vespasian and Apollonius of Tyana, according to Catherine Nixey
The fresh, forceful voice of Frantz Fanon
The Marxist from Martinique became a rallying figure for anti-colonial movements across the world. But might he have revised his violent message had he lived longer?
An unenviable mission: Clear, by Carys Davies, reviewed
It is 1843, the year of the Great Disruption in the Scottish Church, and an impoverished minister is being paid to clear a lonely North Sea island of any remaining inhabitants
