Books
What, if anything, have dictators over the centuries had in common?
Simon Kuper finds little to connect the strongmen of the past and present apart from their contempt for their own supporters
Espionage dominates the best recent crime fiction
Owen Matthews concludes his magnificent KGB trilogy, and there’s a thrilling debut from David McCloskey, a former CIA Middle East specialist
What should we make of the esoteric philosophy Traditionalism?
Depending on one’s perspective, it is either a dangerous way of thinking or one that the decadent West would do well to study, says Mark Sedgwick
How much worse can it get?
The hero of many of Ford’s novels, Frank, now 74, is still trying to bond with his son Paul, who has been diagnosed with an incurable neurodegenerative condition
A whale of a problem
Restoring the painting ‘View of Scheveningen Sands’, an art conservationist uncovers a vital detail, leading her to regret the pact she once made with her husband
A Blakean heaven or hell: fish with coloured lanterns and teeth like primeval beasts
On 11 June 1930, William Beebe and Otis Barton descended into the Caribbean depths to glimpse a world no man had seen before
Barbara Ker-Seymer – Bright Young Person in the shadows
Though she photographed many society figures of the 1930s, Ker-Seymer lacked ambition and remains largely unknown – as she herself seems to have wanted
Sic transit gloria mundi
Katherine Pangonis also traces the histories of Tyre, Antioch, Syracuse and Ravenna, once proud centres of government, trade and culture
The wonder of the marine world is in serious danger
The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna has the misfortune to taste so good that it has been hunted for millennia, and stocks are now dangerously depleted
The devil comes calling
The sinister Sergeant Bertrand arrives in a ‘provincial, mediocre’ Russian town to wreak havoc in the lives of a couple mourning the loss of their son
Frederic Raphael settles old scores with a vengeance
The nonagenarian’s critical faculties are as sharp as ever in these imaginary letters addressed to Kingsley Amis, Jonathan Miller, Doris Lessing and many others
Ireland’s most notorious murderer still casts a disturbing spell
After months of conversations with Ireland’s most notorious murderer, Mark O’Connell got both more and less than he bargained for, says Frances Wilson
The enduring Orwell
One of the things I most enjoy about George Orwell is his love of tobacco. It was essential to him…
Solid, drab grey
Count Maxim pursues his former cleaner Alessia to Albania – but sex in badly plumbed bathrooms while senseless on raki doesn’t sound that thrilling
Circular arguments
Aristotle had long proved that the Earth was spherical, and even the illiterate masses of early medieval Europe were aware of the fact, says James Hannam
The woman who put the Spencer family on the map
Born in 1559, Alice Spencer, a formidable networker, matchmaker and patron of the arts, was the muse of poets including Edmund Spenser and John Milton
Advice to struggling writers
Broad in scope and beautifully written, this unconventional autobiography contains some of the best advice struggling writers will ever receive
The Anne Frank story continues
Hannah Pick-Goslar, a survivor of the Holocaust and Anne’s friend in Amsterdam, movingly describes their snatched conversations in Belsen before Anne disappeared forever
Web of connections
Structured around interlocking stories, the novel is a moving depiction of illness and death – but quantum physics, telepathy and time travel make for cerebral fun as well
The haunting power of 17th-century Dutch art
Too often dismissed as leaden or trivial, Dutch art is a ‘fathomless world, with a strangeness to arouse and disturb’, says Laura Cumming
What have we been missing?
Ge’s short stories set in China are her most adventurous, ranging from politics in the time of Confucius to sex in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
In seven years, Lenin changed the course of history
Between his return from exile and his death, Lenin launched – and perverted – the revolution that shapes world politics today
What ‘pax’ meant in Rome’s golden age of imperialism
The emperors of Rome’s golden age avoided civil war at all costs. But wars against other peoples were a different matter, says Peter Stothard
Too close to home
Life in a comfortable modern flat with her husband and two young sons leaves Natsumi so depressed she thinks she’s losing her mind
Broken dreams
Oliver Balch 8 July 2023 9:00 am
Interviewing the Continent’s refugees and poorest rural inhabitants, Ben Judah reveals a world far removed from Brussels politics or Eurovision optimism