Books
The Good Nurse, by Charles Graeber - review
Charles Cullen, an American nurse, murdered several hundred patients by the administration in overdose of restricted drugs. Hospitals should be…
The Rainborowes, by Adrian Tinniswood - review
Adrian Tinniswood, so gifted and spirited a communicator of serious history to a wide readership, here brings a number of…
A Rogues’ Gallery, by Peter Lewis - review
Like Mel Brooks’s character the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, Peter Lewis has met everyone of consequence. Though he doesn’t mention being…
Philip Hensher reviews the Man Booker prize longlist
The Man Booker prize has strong years and weak years. There have been ones when the judges have succeeded in…
The Email About Writing the Poem
I’ve been occupying myself trying to write a long-ish poem. It’s an odd sensation writing a poem. You’re trying to…
Fairfax under fire
What a spectacle. A Fairfax journalist flanked by a beaming James Packer, making no secret of his loathing for her…
The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, edited by Andrew Jewell - review
Richard Davenport-Hines on the tomboy from Red Cloud whose evocation of the vast, unforgiving landscape of the prairies is unrivalled
A Bright Moon for Fools, by Jasper Gibson - review
Harry Christmas, the central character of this bitterly funny debut novel, is a middle- aged, overweight alcoholic, with no friends…
An Armenian Sketchbook, by Vasily Grossman - review
Vasily Grossman, a Ukranian-born Jew, was a war correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper Red Star. His dispatches from the…
Migration Hotspots, by Tim Harris - review
Consider for a moment the plight of the willow warbler. Russian birds of this species fly between eastern Siberia and…
Bitter Experience Has Taught Me, by Nicholas Lezard - review
What, really, is a literary education for? What’s the point of it? How, precisely, does it help when you’re another…
Decorous Confessions
Unexpectedly, he made a sober success with his self-published book of decorous confessions. It eschewed turmoil in the bedchamber and…
As Green as Grass, by Emma Smith - review
The title, the subtitle, the author’s plain name, even the jacket’s photograph of a laughing old lady in sunglasses: none…
The Girl Who Loved Camellias, by Julie Kavanagh - review
Verdi’s La Traviata is the story of a courtesan who is redeemed when she gives up the man she loves…
The Coronation Chair and the Stone of Scone, by Warwick Rodwell - review
The Coronation Chair currently stands all spruced up, following last year’s conservation, under a crimson canopy, by the west entrance…
They Eat Horses, Don’t They?, by Piu Marie Eatwell - review
Oh the French! Where would the Anglo publishing industry be without them? Ever since Peter Mayle first made goo-goo eyes…
Books and Arts
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Born to rule
Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese Communist Party is either the last non-ridiculous bastion of Marxism, an…
Born to rule
Depending on how you look at it, the Chinese Communist Party is either the last non-ridiculous bastion of Marxism, an…
Tudor, by Leanda de Lisle - review
The Tudors, England’s most glamorous ruling dynasty, were self-invented parvenus, with ‘vile and barbarous’ origins, Anne Somerset reminds us
Reflections on a Metaphysical Flaneur, by Raymond Tallis - review
There are books we read for pleasure and there are books we are paid to review. However enjoyable the books…
A Corner of Paradise, by Brian Thompson - review
Author has late-blossoming romance with authoress, both divorcees, and they live together in a cramped house in Harrogate full of…
The Modern Peasant, by JoJo Tulloch - review
You know that something’s afoot when Lakeland says so. Lakeland is the kitchenware company which has more of a finger…
Island, by J. Edward Chamberlin - review
‘Tom Island’ — that was the name I was given once by a girl I met on an island in…
A Stone in the Shade, by Violet Powell - review
Evelyn Waugh once recalled the anguish with which he greeted Edith Sitwell’s announcement that ‘Mr Waugh, you may call me…
