More from Books
New tactics are needed for the wars of the future
The strategic bankruptcy of the West has twice so far this century demanded that our brave soldiers risk their bodies…
Life’s dark side: the catastrophic world of Stephen Crane
Long before Ernest Hemingway wasted his late career playing the he-man on battlefields and in fishing boats, or Norman Mailer…
Use it or lose it: has the public library had its day?
I write this in a garret a few doors down from the public library in Muswell Hill, north London. It…
Andrew Mitchell relives the agony of Plebgate
Andrew Mitchell, as he readily admits, was born into the British Establishment. Almost from birth, his path was marked out:…
Mass hysteria in Massachusetts: the 17th-century witch crisis in America
One September day in 1649, in the frontier town of Springfield, Massachusetts, Anthony Dorchester returned from church to the house…
It’s the fisherman who’s truly hooked
Trying to catch fish with rod and line is a pursuit that, for many, goes far beyond the pleasant passing…
The revival of the blacksmith’s craft — a new generation goes at it hammer and tongs
At Intelligent Life, the Economistmagazine where I worked for some years, it was easy to feel intellectually challenged. Even the…
Bach’s Cello Suites represent a spiritual meditation — from the Nativity to the Resurrection
‘One player on four strings, with a bow.’ That’s what Bach’s six Cello Suites boil down to, says Steven Isserlis.…
A master of spy fiction to the end — John Le Carré’s Silverview reviewed
Literary estates work to preserve a writer’s reputation — and sometimes milk it too. The appearance of this novel by…
The horror of tank warfare brought vividly to life
If Joseph Stalin was right about one thing it was his assertion that ‘the death of one man is a…
God is everywhere, sometimes in strange guises, in Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads
Twenty years ago The Corrections alerted a troubled world to the talents of Jonathan Franzen. Though cruel and funny and…
Stylish and useful: why the Anglepoise remains a design classic
The tide of survival bias has retreated and left the Anglepoise a design classic. Its contemporaries from the mid-1930s, a…
Folk music is still very much alive and kicking
As a writer who obsesses over the right title to grab a target audience, seeing a book subtitled ‘Song Collectors…
Any beggar woman was a potential scapegoat during the European witch craze
In the three centuries between 1450 and 1750 in Europe it is estimated that up to 100,000 women were burned,…
Don’t ask a historian what history is
E.H. Carr’s 1961 book What is History? has cast a long shadow over the discipline. I recall being assigned to…
Under deep suspicion in Beirut, Kim Philby still carried on regardless
The story of the Cambridge spies has been served up so often that it has become stale — too detailed,…
Reassess every relationship you’ve ever had before it’s too late
‘Reading is a celebration of the mystery of ourselves,’ according to Elizabeth Strout, who writes to help readers understand themselves…
Colson Whitehead celebrates old Harlem in a hardboiled thriller that’s also a morality tale
For modern America, Harlem is a once maligned, now much vaunted literary totem, which continues to occupy a gargantuan place…
From ‘little Cockney’ to playing Queen Mary: the remarkable career of Eileen Atkins
Eileen Atkins belongs to a singular generation of British actresses, among them Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Sian Phillips and Vanessa…
Fiction’s most famous Rifleman returns — and it’s miraculous he’s still alive
It has been 15 years since the last Richard Sharpe novel, and it’s a pleasure to report that fiction’s most…
Beavers, not concrete barriers, can save Britain from floods
As the start date of COP26 draws closer, and just when we are assailed by daily proof of climate chaos,…
As feminists fall out, it’s not just the patriarchy that’s under fire
UK grassroots feminism is flourishing at the moment, with the journalist Julie Bindel leading from the front as troublemaker-in-chief. In…
The delicate business of monitoring the monarchy
This very readable account of relations between the British intelligence services and the Crown does more than it says on…
Spitfires of the sea: the secret exploits of the Royal Navy’s 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla
Fast boats and fast women have been the ruin of many a poor boy. But they can also prove a…
Only time will tell if there’ll be a Great Pandemic Novel
We had been dreading it like (forgive me) the plague: the inevitable onslaught of corona-lit. Fortunately, the first few titles…
