Books
The Irish Times: read by the smug denizens of Dublin 4 and responsible for the Celtic Tiger property bubble
The most successful newspapers have a distinct personality of their own with which their readers connect. In Britain, the Daily…
Don’t Look Back
No, let’s not look at the old photographs any more: our hair was so full and shiny then, and anyway…
Books & Arts opener
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Not Mister Jones!
My father was always arguing and falling out with people in the neighbourhood, but when he clashed with Mister Jones,…
Don’t Look Back
No, let’s not look at the old photographs any more: our hair was so full and shiny then, and anyway…
Not Mister Jones!
My father was always arguing and falling out with people in the neighbourhood, but when he clashed with Mister Jones,…
Don’t Look Back
No, let’s not look at the old photographs any more: our hair was so full and shiny then, and anyway…
British India — the scene of repeated war crimes throughout the 19th century
William Dalrymple is uncomfortably reminded of the astonishing savagery by which the East India Company maintained the Raj throughout the 19th century
Sex, rebellion, ambition, prejudice: the story of 1950s women has it all
Although the young women of the 1950s hovered on the cusp of change, many did not know it. Valerie Gisborn…
Anders Brievik: lonely computer-gamer on a killing spree
In 2011, Anders Breivik murdered 69 teenagers in a socialist summer camp outside the Norwegian capital of Oslo, and eight…
Ancients on oldies: tips on ageing from the Romans are all Greek to Richard Ingrams
A few months ago I went to a lunch at Univ, my old college in Oxford, to celebrate the 95th…
Hock and partridge help fascism go down in 1930s London
Anthony Quinn’s fourth novel, set in London’s artistic and theatrical circles in 1936, is not the kind in which an…
First novel choice: do you prefer your author on a skateboard, or in a vineyard?
I’m not sure I know what the mark of merit is in a first novel, any more than in a…
John Aubrey and his circle: those magnificent men and their flying machines
John Aubrey investigated everything from the workings of the brain, the causation of winds and the origins of Stonehenge to…
Madly Modern Mary overcomes childhood hardships to become the Queen of Shops
In this autobiography, Mary Portas doesn’t dip into the fabled store of her talents by giving an account of her…
All change: everything metamorphoses in Aquarium, including its author, who takes on the persona of a 12-year-old girl
Books ought to be able to stand on their own, but perhaps it is important to know this about David…
Books and arts
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Tales to tell
The short story has long been a staple of Australian literature but has had something of a rough ride in…
A strain of mysticism is discernible in the floating colour fields of Mark Rothko’s glowing canvases
Philip Hensher on the perverse, tormented Mark Rothko, whose anger and depression — often painfully apparent in his art — only increased with his success
Another enemy within: Thatcher (and Wilson) vs the BBC
In a ‘Dear Bill’ letter in Private Eye, an imaginary Denis Thatcher wrote off the BBC as a nest of…
2,500 years of gyms (and you’re still better off walking the dog)
My favourite fact about gyms before reading this book was that the average British gym member covers 468 miles per…
John Lister-Kaye tracks Highland wildlife through a pair of binoculars as he lies in his bath
Sir John Lister-Kaye has adopted a very familiar format in his new book of wildlife encounters. Essentially he charts a…
Both Belgium and the United States should be called to account for the death of Patrice Lumumba
For decades, all the outside world knew was that Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader, had been done away with.…
If ‘incorrect’ English is what’s widely understood, how can it be wrong?
In a cheeringly Dickensian fashion, the names of our supposed experts on grammar imply they want to bind writers (Lynne…
A Father’s Day tragedy: what exactly happened when a car plunged into a reservoir in Australia in 2005?
When Helen Garner, an award-winning Australian author, first saw the TV news images of the car being dragged out of…
