Books
An outsider inside: We, The Survivors, by Tash Aw, reviewed
It’s not immediately obvious who the survivors in Tash Aw’s formidable new novel are, or who the narrator even is,…
A remote island tribe in Indonesia makes whaling seem positively noble
Our relations with cetaceans have always been charged with danger and delight, represented by the extremes of the Book of…
Is British food really still wodges of stodge?
‘You are what you eat.’ The old phrase always reminds me of Denzil, John Sparkes’s character in the comedy sketch…
God save us from Søren Kierkegaard
Surely God, if He existed, would find a major source of entertainment down the ages in the activities of theologians,…
Why would anyone in their right mind choose to be profiled by Janet Malcolm?
God, I wish I was Janet Malcolm. Fifty or more years as a staff writer on the New Yorker, reviews…
A new version of Saladin — as silver-tongued diplomat
I can only remember one page of any of the dozens of Ladybird histories that I read avidly as a…
Will the Pilgrims’ Way soon rival the Camino de Santiago?
There are more than 100 cathedrals in England, Scotland and Wales of many different denominations (although I for one had…
Vasily Grossman: eye-witness to the 20th century’s worst atrocities
Vasily Grossman’s novel Life and Fate (completed in 1960) has been hailed as a 20th-century War and Peace. It has…
A computer will never write the Brandenburg Concertos
What is creativity? Marcus du Sautoy, a mathematician and Oxford professor for the public understanding of science, offers this pert…
The invisible man behind Hollywood’s greatest films
What do the following filmmakers have in common: Victor Fleming, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch,…
Murder in the basement: The Language of Birds, by Jill Dawson, reviewed
Jill Dawson has a taste for murder. One of her earlier novels, the Orange shortlisted Fred and Edie, fictionalised the…
The Struggle and The Scream: is Karl Ove Knausgaard Munch’s doppelgänger?
Norway doesn’t have a world-class philosopher (Kierkegaard was Danish). Karl Ove Knausgaard declared at the end of his previous book…
Was there no end to John Buchan’s talents?
John Buchan was a novelist, historian, poet, biographer and journalist (assistant editor of The Spectator indeed); a barrister and publisher;…
Time for a Tippett revival
Running the entire course of the 20th century, Michael Tippett’s life (1905–1998) was devoted to innovation. He was an English…
Toy boy: Machines Like Me, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
What kind of loyalty do we owe a robot we’ve paid for — one who exhibits a convincingly human kind…
How climate change led to capitalism
At a dinner recently I was told the story of a Canadian billionaire (now defined in banking circles as someone…
I could have stopped Harold Shipman’s killing spree and saved 175 lives
Scientists, it turns out, are really bad at statistics. Numerous studies show that a startling proportion of academics consistently misunderstand…
A stubborn Conservative PM attempting to negotiate with Germany? Not Theresa May but Neville Chamberlain
When lists are compiled of our best and worst prime ministers (before the present incumbent), the two main protagonists of…
Rebel girls of the 13th century
Women who can — however tenuously — be described as ‘rebel girls’ are big in publishing now. Goodnight Stories for…
Jewish food to relish and cherish
In matters of culture and ethnicity, I take my lead from my old friend and guide Sir Jonathan Miller. Like…
The dirty business of early printed books
Say what you like about the efficiency of the Kindle, one day we’re going to wake up and miss the…
A tease for #MeToo
Titania McGrath is the alter ego of the schoolteacher Andrew Doyle. A perpetually enraged ‘activist, healer and radical intersectional poet’,…
Financial eunuch
Teenagers are normally embarrassed by their mothers. Germaine Greer was particularly so. Elizabeth Kleinhenz in her new biography writes: ‘Germaine…
It was pretty good for me: Joan Bakewell on the Sixties
For me this book evokes a Gigi duet moment: ‘You wore a gown of gold.’ ‘I was all in blue.’…
Greece is not just for Greeks — it belongs to the world
It often proves difficult to talk about modern Greece. Not just because of the relentless stream of news coming at…
