Books
The many lives of Richard Nixon
Winston Churchill once said of politics that it’s ‘almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In war you…
How good an artist is Edmund de Waal?
For Edmund de Waal a ceramic pot has a ‘real life’ that goes beyond functionalism.This handsome book (designed by Atelier…
Books and arts
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Battered and beaten down
It’s surely a fancy, the conviction that my first memory of newspapering came as a three-year-old, but I swear the…
Title Stories: The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri
The post Title Stories: The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join…
Title Stories: The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri
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Why movie musicals matter – to this author anyway
Sam Leith finds much to like in a companion to musical films, and concludes that they matter very much – to the author anyway
This diary of a prime minister's wife offers a front-row seat to the Great War
When Margot Asquith’s name crops up these days, it is usually in a retelling of the story about her meeting…
The author’s father didn’t want you to read this book. It’s hard to understand why
There were several times when reading A Dog’s Life that I felt as if I’d fallen into a time warp.…
In the empire stakes, the Anglo-Saxons were for long Spain’s inferiors
‘Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma and who strangled Atahualpa.’ Macaulay, anticipating Gove, was complaining that the schoolboys by contrast…
The ultimate guide to Cornwall
Before writing this review I spent an hour looking for my original Pevsner paperback on Cornwall, published in 1951 (the…
From slaves' rectums to porn vids, there are few places people haven't tried to conceal secret messages
John Gerard, a Jesuit priest immured in the Tower of London in 1597, and tortured by being hung from manacles…
The long and disgraceful life of Britain's pre-eminent bounder
In his time, Gerald Hamilton (1890–1970) was an almost legendary figure, but he is now remembered — if at all…
The Russian literary celebrity who begged Tolstoy to spare Prince Andrei
Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya was a literary celebrity in pre-revolutionary St Petersburg. She chose the pen-name ‘Teffi’ because it was androgynous,…
Books and arts
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Unfair and unbalanced
The thesis of this book is that there is something wrong with politics in Australia. Bryant is right, but not…
It's not just Putin who misses the Soviet empire. President Bush did, too
In the latest – and best – of the books on the end of the USSR, Victor Sebestyen finds that the only good thing about the Soviet empire was the manner of its passing
A paean to the British passion for our very own ‘castles’
‘Phlogiston’ is an interesting, if obsolete, word. Of Greek origin, it referred to the ‘fire-making’ quality thought to be present…
You’ll never look at dried pasta in the same way again
A calculated ordinariness unites the protagonists in Graham Swift’s new collection of short stories. In each of these mini fictions,…
A guide to marriage, moving and fatherhood – and also not a bad tool with which to beat your solicitor to death
Over the past 12 months, I’ve proposed to my girlfriend, moved house, got married, and become a father. The most…
Genghis Khan was tolerant, kind to women – and a record-breaking mass-murderer
Genghis Khan, unlike most Mongols in history, is a household name, regularly misappropriated as a right-wing totem. If we recall…
My Grandmother Said
It was the First World War. Her husband was away. So she knew fear, but also found new freedom in…
The nervous passenger who became one of our great travel writers
Sybille Bedford all her life was a keen and courageous traveller. Restless, curious, intellectually alert, she was always ready to…
A gangster called Capitalism and its vanquisher The Common Good
Once upon a time, a powerful unkillable beast menaced the nation. It had to be tamed. It could only be…
A tribute to the King – or a compendium of journalistic bad habits?
With Elvis has Left the Building, the longstanding editor of GQ has inexplicably written a book that could serve as…
