Books

The subversive message of Paradise Lost

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The great poem is mostly about revolution: how much individuals can revolt against God, father, church and king without bringing all the heavens down upon their heads

A father’s love: Childish Literature, by Alejandro Zambra, reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The Chilean writer contributes obliquely to the fledgling genre of fatherhood literature, combining family vignettes with literary criticism and a ‘diary’ addressed to his infant son

Fortitude, emotional intelligence and wit – the defining qualities of Simon Russell Beale

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The Shakespearean actor has taken on 18 of the great roles since his first gig at the RSC in 1985 and recalls them with insight, sensitivity and a sharp passion for language

The report of Christianity’s death has been an exaggeration

30 November 2024 9:00 am

Immigration is revivifying congregations, with many people showing signs of spiritual openness, in contrast to the bare-knuckle rationalism that characterised New Atheism, says Rupert Shortt

The curse of distraction: Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber, reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

A former college professor prepares to write his long-gestated book on Montaigne, but finds his mind wandering from 1970s nudism to Balzac’s coffee dependency

Seeking forgiveness for gluttony, sloth and other deadly sins

30 November 2024 9:00 am

The neurologist Guy Leschziner explores the medical conditions that might underlie extremes of human behaviour in a fascinating study that combines biology and psychology

Not for the faint-hearted: She’s Always Hungry, by Eliza Clark, reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

An unsettling collection of stories loosely connected by the theme of hunger contains graphic descriptions of violence and cannibalism – as the publishers see fit to warn us

The North American fruit tree that provides a model for economics

30 November 2024 9:00 am

Bound in a web of connectivity, the serviceberry produces sufficient food for humans and other animals, and is an outstanding example of wealth consisting in ‘having enough to share’

The Lion’s Mane, the Firework and terrible jellyfish jokes: the year’s best children’s books

30 November 2024 9:00 am

Contemporary authors, including Rick Riordan, Kate di Camillo, Mark Forsyth and Michael Stavaric, share shelf space with welcome reprints, including the ever-terrifying Struwwelpeter

A shortage of Nigels and other calamities: humorous stocking-fillers

23 November 2024 9:00 am

Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Stuart Heritage and Rob Orchard, among others, explore the mysteries and frustrations of modern life

A post-Brexit entertainment: The Proof of My Innocence, by Jonathan Coe, reviewed

23 November 2024 9:00 am

A satire on radical economic libertarianism combines with a cosy Cotswold murder mystery in an ingenious series of stories within stories

We need to learn to pray again

23 November 2024 9:00 am

God is real, Rod Dreher insists, and we’re born to be in communion with him. But the focus and mental commitment that prayer requires are impossible if we’re forever doom-scrolling

Surviving an abusive mother-daughter relationship

23 November 2024 9:00 am

In a dialogue with her younger self, the Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis tries to make sense of her traumatic upbringing at the hands of a repressive, coercive mother

The chilly charm of Clarissa Eden

23 November 2024 9:00 am

Glamorous, enigmatic and well read, Anthony Eden’s wife was a discreet but unmistakable influence in Downing Street in the mid-1950s

A century of Hollywood’s spectacular flops

23 November 2024 9:00 am

From D.W. Griffiths’s 1916 epic Intolerance to Tom Hooper’s hilariously misjudged Cats, 26 films provide cautionary examples of mega-budget hubris

The boundless curiosity of Oliver Sacks

23 November 2024 9:00 am

The neurologist’s diverse interests – from colour blindness to cephalopods – are strikingly evident in letters to family, friends and patients, as well as his unfailing courtesy and compassion

Is it time for Jordan Peterson to declare his spiritual allegiance?

23 November 2024 9:00 am

In an outstanding study of the Old Testament, Peterson teases out the inner meaning of one story after another. But though in effect signed up to Christian metaphysics, his beliefs are a mystery

What will the cities of the future look like?

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Will they be subterranean, to escape extreme heat; or float in the sky, to avoid overcrowding; or abolish streets entirely, like the Line, now under construction in Saudi Arabia?

Blooming marvellous: the year’s best gardening books

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Subjects include Catesby’s Natural History, London’s lost green spaces, planting for colour in borders and the complexity of a garden’s ecology38

The fresh hell of Dorothy Parker’s Hollywood

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Though well paid as a screenwriter, Parker lampooned Hollywood’s moguls, dubbing MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Merde as she slipped further into alcoholism

Who would be a goalkeeper?

16 November 2024 9:00 am

There’s a whiff of hauteur in Robert McCrum’s history of the penalty kick – his great-grandfather’s brainchild of 1891, which proved such a momentous change to football

A quest for retribution: Fire, by John Boyne, reviewed

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Freya, a respected consultant in a burns unit, is on a secret mission to destroy as many young boys’ lives as possible, having been raped by teenagers on holiday in Cornwall at the age of 12

South Asia in a time of the breaking of nations

16 November 2024 9:00 am

Avinash Paliwal’s gripping tale of espionage opens in 1949, with newly independent India, Pakistan and Burma racked by rivalries in one of the most intricately partitioned areas on Earth

The ambassador’s daughter bent on betrayal

16 November 2024 9:00 am

When the young Martha Dodd arrived at the American embassy in Berlin in 1933 she cared nothing about politics. By the time she left four years later, she was a committed Soviet spy

Seeds of hope in the siege of Leningrad

16 November 2024 9:00 am

A Russian biologist’s dream of creating the world’s first seed bank is thwarted by Stalin’s paranoia and the Nazi invasion. But the pioneering project remains a potent symbol of hope