Books
Dear Mr President: the ‘little people’ write to Obama
President George Washington received about five letters a day and answered them all himself. By the end of the 19th…
Playing for time
In a pleasing nod to Marcel Proust, Eustace, the middle-aged protagonist of Patrick Gale’s new novel, is propelled into memories…
‘Ted is liar. Ted beats me up. Ted wishes me dead’: Sylvia Plath descends into madness and misery
In 1923, a Frenchman, Emile Coué, persuaded millions of Americans to finger a piece of string with exactly 20 knots.…
Peter Carrington: loyal, funny and driven by a sense of duty
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Peter, but you were a famously successful Leader of Their Lordships and I wondered whether…
Bombs and begonias: gardening in a war zone
During the civil war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, Mr and Mrs Roami, a science professor and a nurse,…
The ‘other’ life of Harvey Milk
This is the story of the ‘other’ Harvey Milk. We all know about Harvey the San Francisco politician who was…
Jan Morris talks to herself — about music, irony and cats
To Jan Morris, I am anathema. That goes, too, for David Attenborough. It is a word that this unarguably great…
Philip Marlowe’s last case? Only to Sleep, by Lawrence Osborne, reviewed
Only to Sleep is the third Philip Marlowe novel written by someone other than Raymond Chandler and while the authors…
A friendship in flux: Normal People, by Sally Rooney, reviewed
‘Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t…
‘You don’t want to end up like us’: How I got out of Soho just in time
On the one hand, I am supremely qualified to review this book. In 1984, bored beyond endurance after graduating with…
‘The reality was disgusting’: Peter Ackroyd slams Victorian Britain
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… it was the epoch of belief, it was…
Deep in the forest’s mysteries: The Cloven, by Brian Catling, reviewed
Brian Catling’s great trilogy takes its title from The Vorrh, his first volume. This final book fulfills all the promises…
Alan Johnson: the rock and roll years
We’ve had Alan Johnson the lad from the slums of north Kensington, Alan Johnson the postman and Alan Johnson Member…
The burden of freedom: Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan, reviewed
It’s 1830, and among the sugar cane of Faith Plantation in Barbados, suicide seems like the only way out. Decapitations…
![View of Marseille from the basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, also known as La Bonne Mère, traditionally regarded as the city’s protectress. ‘The Good Mother intervenes at sick beds, down shadowy streets, and in the dark hours of night,’ writes Iain Sinclair [image: Getty]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Marseille.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
How do our surroundings affect our health and happiness?
The Wellcome Trust puts on some of the most engaging exhibitions in London and holds in its permanent collection a…
John Law: the Scottish gambler who rescued France from bankruptcy
John Law was by any standards a quite remarkable man. At the apogee of his power in 1720, he was…
The personality test that conned the world
The other day in the Guardian’s Blind Date column, two participants, or victims, finished off an account of their frightful…
Hoping to find happiness: Paris Echo, by Sebastian Faulks, reviewed
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a serious novel must be in want of a theme. Paris Echo soon…
How a faulty map led to the discovery of America
Reflecting on the genesis of Treasure Island, the adventure yarn that grew from a map of an exotic isle he…
All things lead to 9/11: An American Story, by Christopher Priest, reviewed
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 many writers spoke of feeling immobilised. The scale of the attacks and the world’s…
The scramble for the Middle East: Britain and America fall out
One of the many pleasures offered by Lords of the Desert, which narrates the rivalry between Britain and the United…
The body in the cellar: another grisly unsolved Victorian murder
Literary non-fiction demands that a respectable household is not really a respectable household — and the Bastendorffs of 4 Euston…
The sight of blue hydrangeas brings out the worst in Henri Cole
This new book, from the NYRB’s publishing arm, is in a non-fiction genre I love: short entries dedicated to an…
The horrors of rewilding
This unusual book begins with an account of the author’s ten-year love affair with dairy farming and an attempt ‘to…
A paean to lesbian love: Aftershocks, by A.N. Wilson, reviewed
The polymath writer A.N.Wilson returns to the novel in Aftershocks, working on the template of the 2011 earthquake which devastated…
