Books
The completely ludicrous – and sometimes believable – world of the First World War spook
There can’t have been this many books about the first world war since — just after the first world war.…
Books and arts
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Labor partisan’s economic tale
The old saw about economics being a dismal science turns out, on the evidence of this short but interesting piece…
I, spy
There can’t have been this many books about the first world war since — just after the first world war.…
My Grandmother Said
It was the First World War. Her husband was away. So she knew fear, but also found new freedom in…
I, spy
There can’t have been this many books about the first world war since — just after the first world war.…
My Grandmother Said
It was the First World War. Her husband was away. So she knew fear, but also found new freedom in…
Doctor Zhivago's long, dark shadow
The banning of Dr Zhivago in the Soviet Union had unfortunate consequences for other fine 20th-century Russian novels, says Robert Chandler
A coming of age novel? Or an age of coming novel?
At a time when feminism is grimly engaged in disappearing up its own intersection (two transsexuals squabbling over a tampon…
Lillian Hellman lied her way through life
Lillian Hellman must be a maddening subject for a biographer. The author Mary McCarthy’s remark that ‘every word she writes…
Caught between Marx and a monster
‘Curious to see Mrs Aveling addressing the enormous crowd, curious to see the eyes of the women fixed upon her…
The soundtracked novel that won’t sit still
The Emperor Waltz is long enough at 600 pages to be divided, in the old-fashioned way, into nine ‘books’. Each…
The cruellest present you could give a hated old in-law
It takes a special sort of talent to be able to make drawings of your own 97-year-old mother on her…
From Edwardian idyll to meetings with Nehru: the life of Lady Ursula D’Asbo
This is the Real Thing, an evocative account of English upper-class life throughout the 20th century. It begins amidst the…
What are the Chinese up to in Africa?
Few subjects generate as much angst, or puzzlement, among Western policymakers in Africa as China’s presence on the continent. In…
Books and arts
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Perils of activist judges
Democracy in ancient Athens was often criticised by the aristocracy for not showing significant respect for them and their superior…
Thug, rapist, poetic visionary: the contradictory Earl of Rochester
Philip Hensher on the scandalous 17th-century courtier whose hellfire reputation has overshadowed his fine satirical poetry
Only tourists think of the Caribbean as a ‘paradise’
A couple of years ago in Jamaica, I met Errol Flynn’s former wife, the screen actress Patrice Wymore. Reportedly a…
The cold, remote plateau of Vichy France where good was done
It is with a heavy heart that I pick up anything to do with the Holocaust. Not because it’s wearisome…
Maigret's new clothes – this month's best new crime novel, published 1931
The publisher has whipped up a tsunami of excitement around The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (translated from the…
A divine guide to Dante
Reading Dante is an experience of a lifetime. You never come to the end of it. But, like Dante himself,…
Having a moral compass just gets in the way of being smart
Steven D. Levitt was a Harvard economist who specialised in politics and spent a lot of time watching cop shows…
The gentle intoxications of Laurie Lee
On Laurie Lee’s centenary, Jeremy Treglown wonders how the writer’s legacy stands up
Spoken For
What I want to tell you is I can dream with my eyes wide open, like riding a bicycle without…
