Books
Hoof-trimming
The below is an unpublished poem, written for Moortown, the verse-diary of Ted Hughes’s experiences of farming in Devon in…
On the way to Plumpton
We pull up at Wivelsfield, under a blue sky, and glance out at the one figure on the platform: a…
Review
(reading Daphne Rooke) Thank you for the book. It reminded me in the way she writes, dry as the Karoo,…
Remembering P.J. Kavanagh
‘Elms at the end of twilight are very interesting,’ wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins in his journal: ‘Against the sky they…
Hoof-trimming
The below is an unpublished poem, written for Moortown, the verse-diary of Ted Hughes’s experiences of farming in Devon in…
On the way to Plumpton
We pull up at Wivelsfield, under a blue sky, and glance out at the one figure on the platform: a…
Review
(reading Daphne Rooke) Thank you for the book. It reminded me in the way she writes, dry as the Karoo,…
Did Hans Asperger save children from the Nazis — or sell them out?
Simon Baron-Cohen wonders whether the humane Hans Asperger may finally have betrayed the vulnerable children in his care in Nazi-occupied Vienna
The surreal beauty of Soviet bus stops
The Soviet Union was a nation of bus stops. Cars were hard to come by, so a vast public transport…
When flower power turned sour
Aldous Huxley reported his first psychedelic experience in The Doors of Perception (1954), a bewitching little volume that soon became…
Sebastian Faulks returns to the psychiatrist’s chair in Where My Heart Used to Beat
There can hardly be two novelists less alike than Sebastian Faulks and Will Self, in style and in content. Faulks…
If there’d been a Gilbert and Sullivan opera about Roland Barthes, it might have sounded like John Banville’s The Blue Guitar
The Blue Guitar is John Banville’s 16th novel. Our narrator-protagonist is a painter called Oliver Orme. We are in Ireland,…
The Making of Zombie Wars is Aleksandar Hemon at his hilarious best
In the afterword to this sixth book, Aleksandar Hemon dedicates a word of thanks to his agent for keeping a…
Rid of their enemies, the Caesars set about murdering family and friends
According to Francis Bacon, the House of York was ‘a race often dipped in its own blood’. That being so,…
Rain, shine and the human imagination — from Adam and Eve to David Hockney
‘Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing,’ pleads Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. ‘Whenever people…
The second world war — according to Stalin’s ambassador to London
Ivan Maisky was the Russian ambassador in London from 1932 to 1943, and his knowledge of London, and affection for…
A goddess, a city and a tree
Known for her strength, Athena can throw a spear like a dart, and on the day of the contest for…
Where the wild things are: in the woods and (worse) in the plumbing, according to the latest best children’s books
In the Californian town of San Bernadino, children are going missing; smiling faces grace a gallery of milk cartons. One…
How anarchy was responsible for Auschwitz
In September 1939 Britain went to war against Germany, ostensibly in defence of Poland. One big secret that the British…
Books and arts opener
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Telling it on the mountain
As we stood on the threshold of the dacha outside Vladivostok, the Australian delegation paused. We had been monitoring Boris…
A goddess, a city and a tree
Known for her strength, Athena can throw a spear like a dart, and on the day of the contest for…
A goddess, a city and a tree
Known for her strength, Athena can throw a spear like a dart, and on the day of the contest for…
The British army’s greatest catastrophe — and its most valuable lesson
Peter Parker spends 24 hours on the bloodsoaked battlefield of the Somme, scene of the British army’s greatest catastrophe
Gore Vidal, wannabe aristocrat and proud degenerate
History for Gore Vidal was a vehicle to be ridden in triumph, perhaps as in an out-take from Ben-Hur, which…
