Books
The end of the world is nigh: the latest short stories reviewed
Only Helen DeWitt would start a book with an epigraph of her own pop-culture mash-up poetry and end with an…
Kazakhstan is about the size of Europe — but we know almost nothing about it
Kazakhstan, say signs by the side of the road in this vast Central Asian country, is ‘a land of unity…
Our public schools now resemble five-star hotels — with a Russian and Asian clientele
Deplore it or revere it, you cannot but respect the private school industry’s wart-like survival in modern Britain. Has any…
The Australian James Joyce: the novels of Gerald Murnane reviewed
Gerald Murnane is the kind of writer literary critics adore. His novels have little in the way of plot or…
Where would we be without crime’s heavies? Muscle, by Alan Trotter, reviewed
Let’s hear it for the heavies, the unsung heroes of noir crime fiction on page and screen. The genre would…
Spinning yarns: uplifting stories told through needlework
In this unusual book, part memoir, part history, Clare Hunter offers a personal meditation on the textile arts. Sewing and…
The hot-headed youth who played straight into Hitler’s hands
On 7 November 1938, the 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan walked into the German embassy in Paris. Claiming to have secret papers,…
Cycle of violence: Blood, by Maggie Gee, reviewed
Maggie Gee has written 14 novels including The White Family, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s…
The scramble for Africa goes back many centuries
A thought kept recurring as I read Toby Green’s fascinating and occasionally frustrating book on the development of West Africa…
Will we ever unravel the mysteries of Kabbalah?
In an age where ‘authenticity’ is prized above all things (even if what this actually means is that — like,…
Auberon Waugh — a demon on the page, an angel off it
Auberon Waugh was happy to admit that most journalism is merely tomorrow’s chip paper but, of all the journalists of…
The internet was never intended to spy on us
There is a trend in non-fiction — in fact my editor has been on to me about this lately —…
The unimportance of Ernest Hemingway: why should we bother reading him anymore?
What is the most repulsive sentence in English/American literature? Even as a 12-year-old American boy, I cringed when reading, in…
One hundred years on, could we cope with a new flu pandemic?
Do you remember the swine flu panic a decade ago? Jeremy Brown, the author of this book, describes it here.…
Beware the female stalker: Dream Sequence, by Adam Foulds, reviewed
Adam Foulds’s fourth novel, Dream Sequence, is an exquisitely concocted, riveting account of artistic ambition and unrequited love verging on…
The ghostly Thames: Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield, reviewed
While its shape is famous — prominent on maps of London and Oxford — the Thames is ‘unmappable’, according to…
Train journeys may be losing their romance — but there are other adventures still to be had
Monisha Rajesh wrote lovingly about the Indian railways in her previous book, Around India in 80 Trains; but her new…
Leftist wonderland
Kerry O’Brien in his mammoth memoir argues that his decades of ABC TV presenting were not Left-biased. It’s an easy…
Ernst Jünger — reluctant captain of the Wehrmacht
Ernst Jünger, who died in 1998, aged 102, is now better known for his persona than his work. A deeply…
How Enoch Powell fancied himself Viceroy of India — and other startling revelations
Interviews, like watercolours, are very hard to get right, and yet look how steadily their art has become degraded and…
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: the triumph of Rorke’s Drift
On 22 January last year, the entrance whiteboard at London Underground’s Dollis Hill carried a brief factual statement: On this…
How Eric Clapton’s racism sparked a musical revolution
On 13 August 1977, a demonstration by the National Front was routed in the streets of Lewisham by thousands of…
The best way to defeat totalitarianism? Treat it as a joke
Is there anything one can never laugh about? A question inevitably hanging over humour writing, it’s best answered by the…
Is the threat of capital punishment really the foundation of good behaviour?
Richard Wrangham embraces controversy, and appears to enjoy munching apples from carts he upsets himself. While his new book seems…
Lost in allegory: The Wall, by John Lanchester, reviewed
Dystopian fiction continues to throng the bookshelves, for all the world as though we weren’t living in a dystopia already,…
