Books
Frontier territory
In Ali’s Café, just inside Turkey on the Bulgarian border, Iraqi and Syrian refugees spend their days drinking tea. Now…
In the thieves’ den
‘To get a confession from a proud male factor, it is always better to call for a poet than a…
Conning the connoisseurs
Rogues’ Gallery describes itself as a history of art and its dealers, and Philip Hook, who has worked at the…
Dead poet’s society
Alex Salmond, former first minister of Scotland, once claimed that he could always tell Scottish fiction from English. Novels, he…
Light in the East
Christopher de Bellaigue, a journalist who has spent much of his working life in the Middle East, has grown tired…
A surreal caprice
At the start of this novella the protagonist, Thibaut, is ambushed by Wehrmacht soldiers between the ninth and tenth arrondissements.…
Let me take you through the night
As a child, I used to travel with my mother from London to Cannes, a journey that took slightly under…
Telling stories
John Burnside is the author of an impressive bookshelf of elegant novels and slim, precise volumes of poetry, and like…
All human life is there
This book kept reminding me of Robin Williams in One Hour Photo. Just as his character spied on customers’ private…
More matter with less art
When A.A. Gill died last December, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth across the nation. I must admit this…
The plight of women in Labour
We’re told not to judge books by their covers, but faced with these two it’s hard not to. Harman’s is…
The classic that conquered the world
Somewhere between his first and second drafts, Victor Hugo decided to change the title of his great novel from Les…
A whirlwind life
The dust cover features one of the best-known caricatures of Richard Wagner, his enormous head in this version opened like…
What the secretary saw
What the secretary sawSarah Churchwell Big Bosses: A Working Girl’s Memoir of the Jazz Age by Althea McDowell AltemusUniversity of…
The nature of genius
On 21 December 1945, Ezra Pound was confined to St Elizabeths hospital in Washington DC. He had broadcast for Rome…
Bedside manners
‘A tricky part of my job,’ the GP said, scrolling through the next patient’s notes, ‘is breaking good news.’ As…
Tricks of the trades
Oddly enough, one of the most historically influential pieces of British writing has turned out to be an essay that…
Swash and buckle aplenty
A feeble king and his scheming minister, a hunchback noble and the Daughters of Repentance, a botched assassination and a…
Everyday unhappiness
This is an extraordinarily compelling novel for one in which nothing really happens but everything changes. Sara Baume’s narrator is…
In praise of LSD
Ayelet Waldman is, surely, not the first writer to have scrolled through a list of ‘Books of the Year’ and…
Three’s a crowd
James Lasdun’s latest novel, billed as a psychological thriller, opens in Brooklyn in the summer of 2012. Charlie and his…
The game of life
In the introduction to his new book Steven Johnson starts out by describing the ninth-century Book of Ingenious Devices and…
Swash and buckle aplenty
A feeble king and his scheming minister, a hunchback noble and the Daughters of Repentance, a botched assassination and a…
A whirlwind life
The dust cover features one of the best-known caricatures of Richard Wagner, his enormous head in this version opened like…
In praise of LSD
Ayelet Waldman is, surely, not the first writer to have scrolled through a list of ‘Books of the Year’ and…
