Books
Queen Victoria was born to be a novelist — this book proves it
A wonderfully vivid school story has surfaced written by Queen Victoria as a child. The monarch was clearly a sensational novelist manqué, says Philip Hensher
Owen Sheers disregards the first commandment of novel-writing: to show, not tell
This is a thriller, a novel of betrayal and separation, and a reverie on death and grieving. The only key…
If a novel about failure fails, does that make it a success?
I must be an idiot for pointing out the failings of a novel that’s so screamingly, self-denouncingly about failure. Steve…
Oscar Wilde, Christine Keeler, Ivor Novello and Isambard Kingdom Brunel make unexpected companions on the Great Western
Readers who have put in some time on the railways may remember the neat, brush-painted graffiti that appeared in 1974…
Frank Auerbach: frightened of heights, dogs, driving, swimming — but finding courage through painting
With a career of more than 60 years so far, Frank Auerbach is undoubtedly one of the big beasts of…
Finders Keepers is not so much a book as a shot-by-shot description of a future film
Finders Keepers is a sort-of sequel to last year’s Mr Mercedes, Stephen King’s first foray into what he called ‘hard-boiled…
New ways to destroy the world
Despite the offer of joy proposed in the subtitle, this is a deeply troubling book by one of Britain’s foremost…
What’s wrong with the Victoria Cross
‘It is the task of a Patton or a Napoleon to persuade soldiers that bits of ribbon are intrinsically valuable.…
Bartók would have made history even if he’d never composed a note
‘All my life, always and in every way, I shall have one objective: the good of Hungary and the Hungarian…
Palermo: city of jasmine and dark secrets
The Arabs invaded Sicily in the ninth century, leaving behind mosques and pink-domed cupolas. In the Sicilian capital of Palermo,…
Encounters with the nastiest people on the internet
It is almost a century since the Michelin brothers had the brainwave of supplementing their motorists’ guide with information about…
Bond would be bored in today’s MI6, says Malcolm Rifkind
Spying may be one of the two oldest professions, but unlike the other one it has changed quite a lot…
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In eastern Congo years ago on a road logged into a hill I drove or was driven one evening to…
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In eastern Congo years ago on a road logged into a hill I drove or was driven one evening to…
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In eastern Congo years ago on a road logged into a hill I drove or was driven one evening to…
From Barbary corsairs to people-traffickers: the violence of the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean has always been central to European civilisation — and a source of drama and conflict, says Anthony Sattin
All might have been well had Nicholas II only listened to a tiny cosmopolitan elite
The veteran Russian historian Dominic Lieven’s new study of Russia’s descent towards the first world war is deeply researched, highly…
Fathers and sons — seen from multiple angles
‘People talk about their childhood and it’s so mundane. I don’t remember much about it, if I’m honest. I can’t…
Is Julian Barnes right to think Lucian Freud will survive? Jonathan Meades thinks not
The subject of the least characteristic essay in this engrossing collection of meditations on painters, painters’ lives, painting and reactions…
A kitchen-garden renaissance
Considerable areas of our memory are taken up with food: it might be the taste of Mother’s sponge, the melting…
White dwarfs and neutron stars — stepping-stones to the black hole
The idea of black holes sounds so quintessentially modern and 20th-century that it may come as a surprise to learn…
To Land’s End and beyond: footsore but bravely coasting along
It’s a real skill, writing about a journey where nothing ever happens. We shouldn’t be surprised that Simon Armitage is…
By, with, of and for Kim Kardashian — keeping up with Kulture
The almond eyes that rise towards their outer edges. The cheekbones that curve down to the corners of those upholstered…
Elizabeth Day urges women to be more ‘me first’, less ‘no, no, after you’
Paradise City, Elizabeth Day’s third novel, comes with an accompanying essay on The Pool — an online magazine for the…
