Books
The museum which once displayed Enver Hoxha’s pyjamas now houses a pro-democracy radio station
Albania is a small country of 2.7 million people, wedged within the Balkan peninsula. Separated from both Greece and Italy…
The toughest, smartest, strangest creatures ever to evolve are nearing the end of their continental shelf life
The rich, strange, finely balanced ecosystems of the oceans — on which our lives depend — are profoundly threatened, says Rose George
Terror Management Studies is a brand new area of research — and it’s not about IS or Boko Haram
This is not a book to be read in solitude. Not for the obvious reason that it’s frightening, but because…
The Mad Boy, Peter Watson, Cecil Beaton and the limo — by Sofka Zinovieff
It would not have surprised their friends in the 1930s when Peter Watson had a fling with my grandfather, Robert…
How 18th-century gardeners ordered their plants after a great storm, a terrible drought and ‘a little ice age’
I hesitate ever to criticise an author for the inappropriateness of a book’s title, since it’s more likely the fault…
Colonel Blood: thief turned spy and Royal pensioner
In the words of one of his contemporaries ‘a man of down look, lean-faced and full of pock holes’, the…
Barbara Pym: a woman scorned
Anyone who has ever listened to the thump of a rejected manuscript descending cheerlessly on to the mat can take…
Happy Retirement
Retired persons are not necessarily retiring or withdrawn although we are entitled to feel tired and/or rejuvenated by our superannuated…
Edward Thomas: the prolific hack (who wrote a book review every three days for 14 years) turned to poetry just in time
Edward Thomas was gloomy as Eeyore. In 1906 he complained to a friend that his writing ‘was suffering more &…
Uncle Joe is revered in Putin’s Russia as a benevolent dictator
‘Lately, the paradoxical turns of recent Russian history… have given my research more than scholarly relevance,’ remarks Oleg Khlevniuk in…
Francis Barber: reluctant member of Dr Johnson’s mad ménage
We know a great deal about Samuel Johnson and virtually nothing about his Jamaican servant, Francis Barber. The few facts…
An epic journey (in Hobson-Jobsonese) through the first Opium War to the British seizure of Hong Kong
T.H. White complained that the characters in Walter Scott’s historical novels talked ‘like imitation warming pans’: those in Amitav Ghosh’s…
Books & arts
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Winning the Cold War, losing the culture wars
On the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe day, many Eastern Europeans boycotted celebrations in Moscow, marking the day with…
Happy Retirement
Retired persons are not necessarily retiring or withdrawn although we are entitled to feel tired and/or rejuvenated by our superannuated…
Happy Retirement
Retired persons are not necessarily retiring or withdrawn although we are entitled to feel tired and/or rejuvenated by our superannuated…
The beginning of the end
Both German and Allied troops could be accused of war crimes in the struggle for the Ardennes. It’s a tragic and gruesome history, involving heavy casualties — but flashes of black humour make it bearable, says Clare Mulley
Digesting all the facts — without getting bogged down
Funnily enough, after my editor sent me these three books to read, my guts started playing up. Suddenly, food seemed…
Shakespeare’s stagecraft — and his greatest players
How many books are there about Shakespeare? A study published in the 1970s claimed a figure of 11,000, and today…
How to kill a hippo, cure seasickness, get rid of fleas? Our ancestors had some wild ideas …
As Dear Mary so wittily demonstrates, our need for advice is perennial. But fashions change. Mary would probably take issue…
Art has ceased to be beautiful or interesting — but we are more obsequious than ever to artists
Two ambitious volumes of interviews with artists have just been published. They are similar, but different. The first is by…
The sad demise of the amateur sleuth: it’s all the fault of better policing
‘The crime novel,’ said Bertolt Brecht, ‘like the world itself, is ruled by the English.’ He was thinking of the…
Man of destiny: Napoleon was always convinced he was the chosen one
It is almost inconceivable that there could be a more densely detailed book about Napoleon than this — 800 crowded…
A singer’s joys and woes: like her heroine Dusty Springfield, Tracey Thorn has trouble coming to terms with her beautiful voice
Look up Tracey Thorn’s live performances with Everything But The Girl or Massive Attack on You Tube and you’ll find…
If we recreate the mammoth, it will be 99.999 per cent white elephant
Years ago, in an ill-conceived attempt to break into natural history radio, I borrowed a nearly dead car from a…
