Books
What other job lets you swear in front of your parents?
There aren’t many jobs that allow a nice middle-class Jewish boy to say ‘fuck’ in front of his parents. But…
A master craftsman of the anecdote
One of the many charms of this book is its sheer unexpectedness, which makes it hard to review, for to…
Queen Victoria with the naughty bits put back
Queen Victoria was the inventor of official royal biography. It was she who commissioned the monumental five-volume life of Prince…
The harrowing, inspiring life of Andrew Sachs
Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative…
Lost Kerouac that should have stayed lost
In 1944, when he was 22, Jack Kerouac lost a manuscript — in a taxi, as he thought, but probably…
Middlemarch: the novel that reads you
The genesis of The Road to Middlemarch was a fine article in the New Yorker about Rebecca Mead’s unsuccessful search…
On the trail of a Victorian femme fatale
Kate Colquhoun sets herself a number of significant challenges in her compelling new book, Did She Kill Him? Like Kate…
Books and Arts
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Kim Philby got away with it because he was posh
Kim Philby’s treachery escaped detection for so long through the stupidity and snobbery of the old-boy network surrounding him, says Philip Hensher
The Edward Snowden scandal viewed from planet Guardian
Last summer a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor called Edward Snowden leaked a vast trove of secret information on the…
The spy who came in from le Carré
The single most terrifying moment of my adult life occurred at 8.55 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday 5 August…
Lawrence of Arabia, meet Curt of Cairo
How do you write a new book about T.E. Lawrence, especially when the man himself described his escapades, or a…
Lords, spies and traitors in Elizabeth's England
There are still some sizeable holes in early modern English history and one of them is what we know —…
How Denmark’s Jews escaped the Nazis
Of all the statistics generated by the Holocaust, perhaps some of the most disturbing in the questions they give rise…
Sometimes one story is worth buying a whole book for. This is one of those times
Any new book by Lorrie Moore is a cause for rejoicing, but her first collection of short stories for 16…
Crowd Hunters of Images
remains are handled in a culturally sensitive and religiously appropriate manner presence without value is perceived as occupation today we…
What E.M. Forster didn't do
‘On the whole I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings…
Books and Arts
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Crowd Hunters of Images
remains are handled in a culturally sensitive and religiously appropriate manner presence without value is perceived as occupation today we…
Crowd Hunters of Images
remains are handled in a culturally sensitive and religiously appropriate manner presence without value is perceived as occupation today we…
Secrets of Candleford: the real Flora Thompson
Melanie McDonagh on Flora Thompson, whose revealing account of rural Oxfordshire life at the turn of the 19th century became a literary classic
A spectacular faller in the Benghazi stakes
What an unedifying affair the war in the North African desert was, at least until November 1942 and the victory…
Fairytales of racism
A preview of Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird appeared in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists issue in April last…
Pick of the crime novels
Stuart MacBride’s new novel, A Song for the Dying (HarperCollins, £16.99, Spectator Bookshop, £14.99), is markedly darker in tone than…
Want Hollywood's conventional wisdom? Then read Blockbusters
You can learn a lot from this book. Latin America has a smaller economy than Europe. Big companies can spend…
