Books
Copyright: the great rock’n’roll swindle
For a music fan, the quiz question, ‘Who wrote “This Land is Your Land”?’ might seem laughably easy. Yet if…
The end of the world: an illustrated guide
At the heart of the eschatological ideology of the Islamic State is the belief that when the world ends (and…
Hirohito, MacArthur and other villains
The history of ‘great events’, Voltaire wrote, is ‘hardly more than the history of crimes’. Physically, the war in Asia…
Wrangles over the Rust Belt
In the opening sentence of this subtle and finely poised novel, the narrator, Greg Marnier, known as ‘Marny’, admits that…
The fast, furious life of Max Mosley
Max Mosley’s autobiography has been much anticipated: by the motor racing world, by the writers and readers of tabloid newspapers,…
The weather: a very British obsession
As I got into a Brighton taxi this morning, my driver’s first words were ‘apparently it’ll clear in a couple…
Pricking the pomp of American society
It doesn’t mean much to say that Renata Adler’s journalism isn’t as interesting as her novels — almost nothing is…
The definitive literary guide to mixed martial arts
This is the best book you’ll ever read about mixed martial arts fighting; and this will still be the case…
Cold-blooded
An unidentified lizard, the same size as a Grecian stick, the colour of dirtied sand, holds the dissolving power of…
Books and arts opener
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Cold-blooded
An unidentified lizard, the same size as a Grecian stick, the colour of dirtied sand, holds the dissolving power of…
Cold-blooded
An unidentified lizard, the same size as a Grecian stick, the colour of dirtied sand, holds the dissolving power of…
Good stories of bad Bloomsbury behaviour
Even the Group considered Bunny Garnett and Henrietta Bingham quite ‘wayward’. Their powerful charms appealed to both sexes, says Anne Chisholm — and they even managed a fling together
Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?
From the unpromising and desperately unforgiving background that forged his iron will and boundless ambition, Temujin (as Genghis Khan was…
From conspiracy to childhood secrets: a choice of recent crime fiction
The act of reading always involves identification: with the story, the characters, the author’s intentions. Renée Knight takes this concept…
A Victorian sailor is the new love of my life
Jenny Balfour Paul is an indigo dye expert. She has written two books on the subject, and lectures around the…
Seeds of a mystery in a great-aunt’s will
There is something cruelly beautiful, delightfully frustrating and filthily gorgeous about a Scarlett Thomas novel. Two family trees open and…
Making do on frogs’ legs and 4,500 brace of grouse
This big, bristling, deeply-furrowed book kicks off with a picture of the British countryside just before the second world war.…
How really to annoy the neighbours: build a basement swimming-pool
This book has brought out my inner Miliband. A punitive mansion tax on all properties with garden squares in Notting…
The long shadow of genocide: Armenia’s vengeance years
One morning in March 1921 a large man in an overcoat left his house in Charlottenburg, Berlin, to take a…
A moving tribute to Janusz Korczak, hero of the Warsaw ghetto
‘My mother and father named me Aron, but my father said they should have named me What Have You Done,…
Trials of the century: sex, sodomy, espionage, theft and fraud
Jeremy Hutchinson was the doyen of the criminal bar in the 1960s and 1970s. No Old Bailey hack or parvenu…
The Durable Postie
(For Karl) He doesn’t even bother to change out of his uniform, just goes straight to the pub after…
Shunned, slighted and starving in Sheffield — the Indian immigrants who have become Britain’s untouchables
Novels of such scope and invention are all too rare; unusual, too, are those of real heart, whose characters you…
Books and arts opener
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