More from Books
Sinister toy story: Little Eyes, by Samanta Schweblin, reviewed
We often hear that science fiction — or ‘speculative’ fiction, as the buffs prefer — can draw premonitory outlines of…
It’s still impossible for Horst Wächter to recognise his father as a Nazi war criminal
In 1926, while putting in place the repressive laws and decrees that would define his dictatorship, Mussolini appointed a new…
Heated debate over Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition
How refreshing in a time of general sensitivity to find a book intended to infuriate and debunk. Welcome to the…
Is the world speeding up or slowing down? Depending on your politics, you can argue either way
Ah well. It was a nice try. A few years ago I wrote a book called The Great Acceleration, arguing…
Consigned to a living tomb: Aziz BineBine endures 18 years in a subterranean prison
Imagine being on indefinite lockdown, imprisoned in a dark, underground, 6’ x 12’ cell, freezing in winter, boiling in summer…
The nightmare of Okinawa made Truman decide to use the atom bomb
The US operation of 1945 to take the island of Okinawa was the largest battle of the Pacific during the…
Globalisation is scarcely new: it dates back to the year 1000
In Japan, people thought the world would end in 1052. In the decades leading up to judgment day, Kyoto was…
For Ravi Shankar, music was a sort of religion
When musicians from outside the Anglo-American pop mainstream achieve success in the West, there are conflicting reactions. Seun Kuti, the…
Britain can be as prone to fascism as any other nation
It’s easy to dismiss the fascistic ideologues who populate Graham Macklin’s book as reactionary cranks of no significance. It’s also…
A paranormal romance that seems to go nowhere: NVK, by Temple Drake, reviewed
NVK, which is the IATA (International Air Transport Association) code for Narvik’s old airport, is in this instance Naemi Vieno…
The trade in cadavers is rife with scandal
John Troyer, the director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, has moves. You can…
The devastating effects of bigamy: Silver Sparrow, by Tayari Jones, reviewed
Conservative estimates place the number of those in America with more than one spouse as up to 100,000, but the…
There’s nothing romantic about Cornish fishermen, whatever tales they may spin
Lamorna Ash came to the fishing port of Newlyn in south-west Cornwall to write a memoir. This is not unusual.…
At last, a novel about the art world that rings true: Annalena Mcfee’s Nightshade reviewed
On a winter’s night an artist of moderately exalted reputation and in lateish middle age journeys across London, away from…
Has Notre-Dame ever been a symbol of unity for the French?
From the kitchen of her apartment on the Quai de la Tournelle in Paris, the journalist and broadcaster Agnès Poirier…
Annie Ernaux looks back at her teenage self – and sees a stranger
How can you recover the teenage girl you were? Not just recall the memories and recount the events — this…
His son’s death may have inspired some of Shakespeare’s greatest lines, but he never recovered from the loss
Maggie O’Farrell is much possessed by death. Her first novel, After You’d Gone (2000), chronicled the inner life of a…
When six of her 12 children went mad, Mimi Galvin did her best to make to light of it
Don Galvin and Mimi Blayney married in December 1944. It was a shotgun wedding. They had been high school sweethearts.…
Even Anne Tyler can’t make a solitary Baltimore janitor sound interesting
Micah Mortimer, the strikingly unproactive protagonist of Anne Tyler’s 23rd novel, is a man of such unswerving routine that his…
Violence and infidelity on sun-drenched Hydra: A Theatre for Dreamers, by Polly Samson, reviewed
The beautiful Greek island of Hydra became home to a bohemian community of expats in the 1960s, including the Canadian…
The Far East Campaign of 1941-5 is the new focus of Daniel Todman’s comprehensive history
To begin not at the beginning but at the end of the beginning. Or rather, to begin at another beginning,…
Greg Jenner’s survey of celebrities through the ages has a distinctly Horrible Histories feel
Good writing about celebrity is scant. It has few poets, because it takes depth to go truly shallow (I’d nominate…
King Solomon’s lost city will remain lost forever
Armageddon began as Har Megiddo, the Hill of Megiddo in northern Israel. The theological aspect is Christian. For Jews, ancient…
Male violence pulses through Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock
‘It’s a woman’s thing, creation,’ says Sarah,a girl accused of witchcraft in 18th-century Scotland, in one of the three storylines…
Nature fights back with tooth and claw as we persist in destroying it
Where to turn in anxious and febrile times? One answer is to nature, or the ‘non-human living world’, which, despite…
