Books
Double trouble
Elsa, a concert pianist, is starting to panic. Her adoptive father is dying, and she keeps meeting her doppleganger, fuelling an obsession with her origins
The danger of making too many friends
Elizabeth Day recognises that real friends need nurturing, and spreading yourself too thinly doesn’t help anyone
The amazing aerial acrobatics of swifts
Over the course of one midsummer’s day, Mark Cocker presents a startling picture of the breeding, feeding, fledging and migrating habits of these little dynamos of life
When violence was the norm: Britain in the 1980s
Football hooliganism led to a shocking number of deaths, as did the many infrastructure disasters caused by negligence, while riots and street fighting were endemic
A troubling Eden
Scandal engulfs a female rector when her chief bellringer is accused of child-molesting and paintings in the parish church are judged sacrilegious
A gruesome discovery: Death Under a Little Sky, by Stig Abell, reviewed
A police detective inherits a country estate and looks forward to early retirement, but is forced back into action when human bones surface at a village treasure hunt
Polly Toynbee searches in vain for one working-class ancestor
Though many of her distinguished forebears campaigned vigorously against privilege and conservative elitism, they were still too posh for Toynbee’s comfort
Our future life on Earth depends on the state of the ocean
As the world’s thermometer, the ocean keeps everything in balance, but carbon emissions and our use of it as a dumping ground is threatening its life, says Helen Czerski
Haunted by Old Russia: Rachmaninoff’s lonely final years
Exiled from Russia and often denigrated in America, Rachmaninoff lived in a fug of unbearable, impenetrable sadness, says Paul Kildea
A canter through Britain’s racecourses
Nicholas Clee provides gripping stories of famous horses, jockeys and trainers, along with a history of racing itself and the best places to watch the spectacle
Laughing in the face of cancer
Sylvia Patterson manages to bring much rackety humour to bear in her descriptions of the pain and indignity her treatment involves
The root of the problem
The novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo is attracted by the freedom a New York job promises, but misses the young daughter she has left behind in London
Evil geniuses
Does knowledge of the wrongs committed by Caravaggio, Picasso, Roman Polanski and other ‘monsters’ condition our response to their art, wonders Claire Dederer
A purring cat is not always contented
In his vast survey of felines wild and domestic, Jonathan Losos reveals, among much else, that a cat’s purr can convey hunger or panic as well as pleasure
Literary charades
Blending fact and fiction, France combines a tale of antics on a creative writing course with episodes from her family life
Was it murder?
In a beautifully told novel, O’Callaghan focuses on the mysterious death of the footballer Matthias Sindelar in 1939 – possibly as a result of defying Hitler
From she-devil to heroine – Winnie Mandela’s surprising metamorphosis
Jonny Steinberg describes Nelson and Winnie’s doomed marriage, and how their posthumous reputations have undergone a startling reversal
Andrew Motion pays tribute to his poetic mentors
In a second memoir, Motion focuses on how he became a poet, and his search for father figures, including W.H. Auden and Philip Larkin
Why are we so squeamish about describing women’s everyday experiences?
Philip Hensher discusses how words relating to women’s ordinary experiences have been shrouded in euphemism over the centuries
An eye for the absurd
Come for the satire, stay for the one-liners, and take succour from the hope Walter finds in a world where everyone needs an angel from time to time
Pie in the sky
Frieda Hughes adopts an unfledged orphan bird, regarding him as ‘a magical creature’ – but few others find him so engaging
Britain’s churches need us to survive – but do we still need them?
Attendance is in serious decline, but our churches have much to offer, especially in times of crisis, and we neglect their crumbling fabric at our peril
Friendships and rivalries in the golden age of Oxford philosophy
Nikhil Krishnan provides many amusing vignettes of Isaiah Berlin, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle and others in the heyday of linguistic philosophy
The view from on high
Sixteen-year-old Kit floats free from her body at night and circles invisibly over family and friends – not always liking what she sees
The villains of Silicon Valley
David Honigmann 20 May 2023 9:00 am
Malcolm Harris is unsparing in his attack on Palo Alto’s tech giants past and present, including Leland Stanford, Herbert Hoover, William Shockley and Peter Thiel