Books
Must Ovid be hijacked by the alt-right?
Who could possibly take exception to the Stoics? One of the more passive arms of Hellenistic philosophy, Stoicism required its…
Francis of Assisi’s life in poetry will stay in the mind forever
This passionate series of engagements with the life of St Francis will stay in my mind for a very long…
Horrors of the house of wax: Little, by Edward Carey, reviewed
The reader of Edward Carey’s Little must have a tender heart and a strong stomach. You will weep, you will…
A novel view of Brexit: Middle England, by Jonathan Coe, reviewed
Jonathan Coe writes compelling, humane and funny novels, but you sometimes suspect he wants to write more audacious ones. He…
In the garden of good and evil: the power of the poppy
America has for years been struggling with a shortage of the drugs it uses to execute people, yet it was…
It’s thought that counts when it comes to good prose
This is a sentence. As is this — not an exceptionally beautiful one, but a sentence all the same, just…
Insomnia is key to my creativity
A genre of memoir currently in vogue involves entwining the author’s personal story with the cultural history of a given…
The vampire’s role in Marxist philosophy
‘What!’, railed Voltaire in his Dictionnaire Philosophique of 1764. ‘Is it in our 18th century that vampires still exist?’ Hadn’t…
Treat in store: Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver, reviewed
In a living room in Vineland, New Jersey, in the 1870s, a botanist and entomologist named Mary Treat studied the…
Just a man: Demystifying Napoleon
Who says that the ‘great man’ theory of history is dead? Following hard on the heels of Andrew Roberts’s magnificent…
If only we could hibernate all winter
As travel writer, nature writer, memory retriever and, I would add, prose-poet of mesmerising lyricism, Horatio Clare is a celebrant…
A little of Philip Larkin’s letters goes a long way
On 13 September 1964, at the age of 42, Philip Larkin began writing to his mother Eva (his ‘very dear…
It’s entirely possible to die of a broken heart
The numbers invite awe: three billion beats in a lifetime; 100,000 miles of vessels. But on the hospital floor, wonder…
Mark Kermode: I longed to be a pop star
In the 1970s, when Mark Kermode first picked up an instrument, the UK record business was a very different place.…
Heredity is only half the story
The Romans invoked Fortuna, the goddess of luck, to explain the unexplainable; fortune-tellers study tea leaves to predict the unpredictable.…
Jane Haynes: the shrink who loves to break the rules
‘I have fallen in love many times in my consulting room,’ writes the psychotherapist Jane Haynes. ‘I do not mean…
Deeply mysterious: the latest thrillers reviewed
Maggie is sitting alone in the park when she’s approached by Harvey, who introduces himself as a recruiter for MI5.…
Why the British love the oak tree
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been planting up much of the pasture on our small Cornish farm with…
The road trip from hell: A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better, by Benjamin Wood, reviewed
A lingeringly strange atmosphere hangs about Benjamin Wood’s third novel, in which the settings and paraphernalia of a new wave…
Long march, short book
Rarely does one have the opportunity to understand the complexities of modern political problems through the lens of an artist.…
Whatever America is searching for, Trump isn’t providing it
Donald J. Trump has sparked some soul- searching among US historians: has this happened before? Does it mean America has…
150 years on, what makes Little Women such an enduring classic?
The great thing about Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women is that it has something for everyone: stay-at-home types have…
Manic creations: Lost Empress: A Protest, by Sergio De La Pava, reviewed
American mass-incarceration is the most overt object of the ‘protest’ of this novel’s subtitle. The author, Sergio De La Pava,…
Gatsby in Japan: Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami, reviewed
Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore was published in Japan in February last year. Early press releases for this English version hailed…
Kidnapped by Kett: Tombland, by C.J. Sansom, reviewed
Tombland is not to be treated lightly. Its length hints at its ambitions. Here is a Tudor epic disguised as…