Books
In the steppes of the ancients: travels on the Silk Road
It is difficult to fault this remarkable volume. The publishers have created a book of quality with stunning illustrations and…
How the smile came to Paris (briefly)
In 1787 critics of the Paris Salon were scandalised by a painting exhibited by Mme Vigée Le Brun. The subject…
All you’ll ever need to know about the history of England in one volume
Here is a stupendous achievement: a narrative history of England which is both thorough and arresting. Very few writers could…
Juliet Townsend (1941-2014)
Mark Amory remembers a close friend and trusted reviewer
Hiding in Moominland: the conflicted life of Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson’s father was a sculptor specialising in war memorials to the heroes of the White Guard of the Finnish…
In the Emergency School
We were registered as a form, and for the first day Left unsupervised alone in a distant room With empty…
Grimms’ fairy tales: the hardcore version
Child murder, domestic slavery, abusive families, cannibalism and intergenerational hatred — what could be better for the festive fireside than…
Transnistria: a breakaway republic of a breakaway republic
Transnistria is not an area well-served by travel literature or, really, literature of any kind. The insubstantial-seeming post-Soviet sandwich-filling between…
Books and arts
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Under the bed
The bogeyman of the ASIO agent under the bed has long been an obsession of the Left, and judging from…
Spot the Booker Prize winning books
The post Spot the Booker Prize winning books appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion…
Juliet Townsend (1941-2014)
A new literary editor looks among his acquaintance for potential reviewers. There was no one I approached more confidently in…
Sunset Hails a Rising
O lente, lente currite noctis equi!— Marlowe, after Ovid. La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée.—Valéry. Dying by inches, I…
In the Emergency School
We were registered as a form, and for the first day Left unsupervised alone in a distant room With empty…
Title stories: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
The post Title stories: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join…
Spot the Booker Prize winning books
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Juliet Townsend (1941-2014)
A new literary editor looks among his acquaintance for potential reviewers. There was no one I approached more confidently in…
Sunset Hails a Rising
O lente, lente currite noctis equi!— Marlowe, after Ovid. La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée.—Valéry. Dying by inches, I…
Title stories: Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Mecca: from shrine to shopping mall
The Saudis, official custodians of Islam’s holiest place, have bulldozed its historical sites, perverted its religion and turned Mecca into one vast shopping mall, says Justin Marozzi
Not a barrel of laughs: a history of hogsheads, kegs and puncheons
Few people, perhaps, will immediately seize on this title as just the thing for a relative’s Christmas, even if their…
Your immune system’s war isn’t Saving Private Ryan — it’s Homeland
Before I read this book, I imagined the immune system as a defensive force, like the Germans on the beaches…
What Hanif Kureishi learned from being robbed by his accountant
Have you ever met a sane accountant? I ask, because one of the more striking sentences in A Theft runs:…
Haunted by the Holocaust: Three novellas by Patrick Modiano
Earlier this year Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for the art of memory with which he has…
Title Stories: The Woman in White
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
