Books
The queen of England who never was: the life of the Empress Matilda
The Empress Matilda, mother of the Plantagenet dynasty, is the earliest queen of England who never was; by rights she…
Missive from a living fossil: Little Boy, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, reviewed
In his adopted city of San Francisco, the poet, publisher and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti is venerated to levels nearing those…
In the pavilion of fun: Bowlaway, by Elizabeth McCracken, reviewed
Bowlaway, Elizabeth McCracken’s first novel in 18 years, is a great American candy-colour Buddenbrooks, a multi-generational epic spanning almost 100…
Richard Sorge: the Soviet Union’s master spy
Interviewed on the Today programme on 7 March, a former executive of the gigantic Chinese tech firm Huawei admitted: ‘It…
Who was the real St Patrick: an evangelist or a tax dodger?
St Patrick’s Day, on 17 March, is now regarded as a prime opportunity for Irish politicians to travel abroad on…
The subversive, Austenesque wit of ‘Late in the Day’, by Tessa Hadley
Tessa Hadley is not the sort of writer to land the Booker Prize, which tends to reward writers from ‘anywhere’…
The uphill task of judging whether Tony Blair was a villain or hero
On the day that Tony Blair left the Commons chamber for the last time (to a standing ovation led by…
Has Dave Eggers finally found his voice?
The Parade, Dave Eggers’s eighth novel, is a slim, strange book, another unpredictable chapter in the career of this hard-to-pin-down…
The cheerful manifesto of anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite
Ashton Applewhite is a leading American ‘inspirer’ on how to make the most of being over the hill. She has…
Two big books on motherhood and childlessness: Catherine Mayer got emotional
A single survey, elevated by news organisations to scientific certainty, suggests that air travellers may be more susceptible to tears…
One of the world’s great love stories
‘I still think he was a bastard.’ This is the opinion that Julia, daughter of the novelist Arthur, has about…
America’s empire – a story of the secret and the convenient
Where other nations disbanded their empires following the second world war, America’s underwent transubstantiation, from something solid to something more…
Making the case for multilingualism – a timely reminder
English as the world’s lingua franca isn’t going anywhere. Why, then, should we Anglophones bother to learn another language? What’s…
Sadie Jones’s modern morality tale
The love of money, says St Paul, is the root of all evil. The Snakes makes much the same point.…
In (vain) search of the snow leopard
Alex Dehgan is clearly someone with a penchant for hazardous jobs. Even in the first few pages we find him…
Lotharingia: Charlemagne’s much disputed legacy
In 1919, only months after the end of the Great War, a French airman called Jacques Trolley de Prevaux, accompanied…
A delicious novel from one of our most inventive contemporary voices
‘Food experiences,’ writes Michael Flanagan in his paper ‘Cowpie, Gruel and Midnight Feasts: Food in Popular Children’s Literature’, ‘form part…
Faber’s new ‘poetry’ collection
If you’re unsure whether Shaun Ryder’s lyrics for Happy Mondays and Black Grape really deserve the full Faber-poetry treatment, then…
A clear vision of Walter Gropius the man is hard to come by
Walter Gropius (1883–1969) had the career that the 20th century inflicted on its architects. A master of the previous generation…
Angels through the ages
A good question for your upcoming Lent quiz: where are angels mentioned in the Nicene Creed? I asked this at…
Love, death and loss in a small village – Lanny reviewed
Max Porter’s first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers (2015), got a lot of credit for finding original ways…
The world according to Charlotte Bingham, Spies and Stars reviewed
Charlotte Bingham has had an extraordinary writing career. She wrote her first book, Coronet Among the Weeds (newly republished by…
I Will Never See the World Again, Ahmet Altan’s fourth book written from prison
There’s no getting away from that title. I will never see the world again. It catches your eye on the…
Mister Miracle, the cheesiest of all superheroes, reviewed
Mister Miracle is, on the face of it, one of the cheesiest of all costumed super-heroes. Created by Jack Kirby…
Playing mind games: Let Me Not Be Mad reviewed
The journalist Auberon Waugh, in whose time-capsule of a flat I briefly lived in 2000, once summed up what he…
