Books
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…
The Dear Leader’s passion for films — and the real-life horror movie it led to
Ahead of last year’s release of The Interview, the Seth Rogen film about two journalists instructed to assassinate Kim Jong-un,…
When two young Britons go camping in Yosemite their lives are changed for ever
The title of A.D. Miller’s follow-up to his Man Booker shortlisted debut Snowdrops refers not to lovers but to two…
John Gray’s great tour-guide of ideas: from the Garden of Eden to secret rendition
You can’t accuse John Gray of dodging the big questions, or indeed the big answers. His new book The Soul…
Jean-Paul Sartre was perhaps the 20th century’s most famous thinker - if you can get beyond the verbiage
Thomas R. Flynn has written an avowedly ‘intellectual biography’ of Jean-Paul Sartre, which might seem fitting. Sartre was nothing if…
Books and arts
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Fizmer, feetings, flosh, blinter - enjoy these words and forget them immediately, advises Adam Nicolson
It is not only archaic or dialect terms in natural history we’re now missing in everyday speech, says Adam Nicolson. Soon children won’t even know what a dandelion is
How could anyone enjoy Cédric Villani’s ‘Birth of a Theorem’? I think I’ve worked it out
I’ve got a mathematical problem. Birth of a Theorem is by one of the great geniuses of today, a cosmopolitan,…
Sonic Youth turns sour: a tarnished marriage band
For 30 years Kim Gordon was one half of a cool couple in a cool band. With her husband Thurston…
Ogres, pixies, dragons, goblins... Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in ten years is a strange beast indeed
If you’d been asked at the beginning of the year whose new novel would feature ogres, pixies and a she-dragon…
Reading one book from every country in the world sounds like fun - until you come to North Korea
One day in 2011, while perusing her bookshelves, Ann Morgan realised her reading habits were (to her surprise) somewhat parochial.…
Michael Arditti is the Graham Greene of our time
Duncan Neville is an unlikely hero for a novel. Approaching 50, divorced and the butt of his teenage son Jamie’s…
The first Lord Dufferin: the eclipse of a most eminent Victorian
The first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava is largely forgotten today — rotten luck for the great diplomat of the…
Daffodils
These sprightly flowers are no cowards. They poke forth sun seeking heads, proudly proclaim when earth remains clenched in winter’s…
