Books
In the heart of darkness, the atom bomb
At the dark heart of this dark book is a startling fact: Joseph Conrad was employed to steam up the…
Why worship Prince Philip?
In this travelogue, Matthew Baylis, the novelist and TV critic and former Eastenders screenwriter, goes to Tanna, a Melanesian island,…
Charles Saatchi's photo play
The game that Charles Saatchi plays in The Naked Eye is to find photographs of subjects that look surprisingly like…
American Smoke, by Iain Sinclair - review
If you have read Iain Sinclair’s books you will know that he is a stylist with a love of language.…
The best cookery books of 2013
Nigel Slater’s books lead the field in cookery book design, but his latest, Eat: The Little Book of Fast Food…
'A little bit of rape is good for a man's soul': the outrageous life of Norman Mailer
Heroically brave and mad, prodigious in his industry and appetites, Norman Mailer was an altogether excessive figure. Since his death…
Should Elizabeth Jane Howard have brought back the Cazalets?
Some years ago, a woman wrote to Dear Mary, at the back of this periodical, with an unusual problem: she…
The pirate myth
Hear the word ‘pirate’ and what picture springs to your mind? I see a richly-bearded geezer in a tricorne hat…
The vengeance of Alex Ferguson
For a quarter of a century Sir Alex Ferguson bestrode football’s narrow world like a colossus. Like his predecessor knight-manager,…
Dining with a Picasso
We had decided to dine out with our latest Picasso. The Picasso sat at the head of our table. It…
Did Hollywood moguls really make a pact with Hitler?
At the recent Austin Film Festival, at every ruminative panel or round-table discussion I attended, I slapped my copy of…
Hurrah for Andrew Strauss
Andrew Strauss is a serious man and Driving Ambition (Hodder, £20, Spectator Bookshop, £18) is a serious book. It looks…
Captain courageous
Andrew Strauss is a serious man and Driving Ambition (Hodder, £20, Spectator Bookshop, £18) is a serious book. It looks…
Captain courageous
Andrew Strauss is a serious man and Driving Ambition (Hodder, £20, Spectator Bookshop, £18) is a serious book. It looks…
Spectator writers pick their books of the year
Recommended reading from some of our regular reviewers
Look! Shakespeare! Wow! George Eliot! Criminy! Jane Austen!
Among the precursors to this breezy little book are, in form, the likes of The Story of Art, Our Island…
Did Leonard Bernstein do too much to be a great artist?
Nigel Simeone’s title for his edition of Leonard Bernstein’s correspondence rings compellingly, novellistically, through the force of the definite article,…
Rebus is good, but not as sharp as he once was
Cig 1 Auld Reekie . . . Edinburgh . . . brewers’ town, stinking of beer, whisky, tweeness, gentility, hypocrisy,…
The Briton whose achievement equals that of the Pharaohs'
We constantly need to be reminded that the consequence of war is death. In the case of the first world…
How many positions are there in the Kamasutra?
Numbers, as every mathematician knows, do odd things. But they’re never odder than in the human context. Ever since we…
Through It All I’ve Always Laughed, by Count Arthur Strong - review
Fans of Count Arthur Strong (and yes I know he’s so Marmite you could spread him on a cheese sandwich)…
The most important gardening book of the year
I’ll own up at once. Tim Richardson and Andrew Lawson, the author and photographer of The New English Garden (Frances…
Blonde, beautiful — and desperate to survive in Nazi France
Around 200 Englishwomen lived through the German Occupation of Paris. Nicholas Shakespeare’s aunt Priscilla was one. Men in the street…
One Leg Too Few may be one biography too many
It’s no joke, writing about comedians. Their work is funny, their lives are not. Rightly honouring the former while accurately…
Why do the British love cryptic crosswords?
Everyone loves an anniversary and the crossword world — if there is such a thing — has been waiting a…
