Books
Divinely decadent
‘Oh the Mediterranean addiction, how we fall for it!’ So sighed Sybille Bedford, who spent the 1920s and 1930s in…
Magnetic and repellent
When he first came to public notice, Rasputin was described in a Russian newspaper as ‘a symbol. He is not…
When greed became good
We financial hacks have been encouraged, indoctrinated perhaps, to think that London’s Big Bang was a Very Good Thing. That…
Blithe spirit
Lady Anne Barnard is a name that means almost nothing today, but her story is a remarkable one. She defied…
Deadlier than the male
Teenage girls all over the world have suddenly developed electro-magnetic powers that can be unleashed on anybody who bugs them.…
Intimations of immortality
A preoccupation with death is felt from the start of Margaret Drabble’s new novel, which opens with Francesca Stubbs, in…
Bewitching stuff
Richard Francis’s new novel covers ostensibly familiar ground. Set in and around Boston in the 1690s, it tells the story…
When the music changes
In 2011 the New York Times’s chief dance critic, Alastair Macaulay, asked: How should we react today to ‘Bojangles of…
November Wine Club I
Start your festive stockpiling right here, right now. Why wait until the week before Christmas to buy Berrys’ scrumptious own…
Post-election discussion
After the American people have voted, what next for the US and the rest of the world? Join Sir Christopher…
Christmas cartoon offer
Purchase a Spectator cartoon now to receive free framing in time for Christmas. Enter FRAME16 at checkout for your free…
Festive Wine lunch II
Owing to overwhelming demand our business editor, Martin Vander Weyer, and our drinks editor, Jonathan Ray, will be hosting a…
Private view
The Spectator invites you to a private breakfast view of Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy of Arts on 26…
Winemaker’s dinner
Join us for a Spectator dinner featuring the wines of Armand de Brignac, a much-talked-about champagne house. Emilien Boutillat will…
Meaty matters
I’m writing this in the Highlands. Through the window I can see Loch Maree, being ruffled into white-tipped skirls by…
A big beast in Hush Puppies
It always used to be said that, if it had been up to Guardian readers, Ken Clarke would certainly have…
TB or not to be
If you are 70-plus, the shadow of TB will have hung over your childhood and youth, as it did mine,…
A tale of two prisons
The Marshalsea was the best and worst place for a debtor to be imprisoned. From 1438 until its closure in…
A race apart
South African democracy has not, on the whole, been kind to the Afrikaner. During Nelson Mandela’s benign oversight of the…
Tormented genius
Married as I am to an antiquarian book dealer, and living in a house infested with books and manuscripts, I’m…
Shiver me timbers
Brrrrr, this is a chilly book. Each time a character put on his sealskin kamiks, muskrat hat, wolfskin mittens and…
Highly undesirable
Most of us just live in cities, or travel to see them and take them pretty much as they come,…
Fierce indignation
In an autobiographical note written late in his life, Jonathan Swift set down an astonishing anecdote from his childhood. When…
The great Soviet gameshow
In the opening chapter of her history of Soviet Central Television, Christine E. Evans observes two Russian televisual displays of…
Walking the walls of Theodosius
Hagia Sophia (the Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Istanbul is arguably the most important building in our Judeo-Christian tradition.…
