Books
Chance encounters
The fates of members of a Jewish family depend on accidental meetings, the boarding of a ship or the ring of a phone in this complex fable woven from 20th-century history
The company of hens could be the best cure for depression
Their jostling energy and distinct personalities bring joy not only to their owners but increasingly to children in therapy and lonely pensioners in care homes
Among the giants
A dramatic rejuvenation drug is being distributed to a wealthy elite, enabling them to tower over the other inhabitants of the mysterious lake city of Othrys
Love in the shadow of the Nazi threat
Florian Illies describes the charged atmosphere of Europe in the early 1930s, as people grew increasingly desperate to celebrate their last chance of freedom
Proud to be British
Sunder Katwala, of Indian-Irish heritage, analyses the whiteness of the Remain vote, seeing Britain’s pro-European movement as a case of cosmopolitanism without diversity
Daily life at the 18th-century Bank of England
Anne L. Murphy provides a vivid picture of clients, clerks and couriers, pay and perks, cases of fraud and incompetence and the underappreciated threat of fire and violence
An unstable world
Adapted from interviews with a trainer from Iowa, Scanlan’s novel is a disturbing portrait of violence and squalor behind the scenes at racing stables
Literary fun and games
Academic jargon, back-scratching and literary scandals were all ripe for treatment in the long-running N.B. by J.C. column – now available in a glorious miscellany
Shakespeare sceptics are the new literary heroes
Determined sceptics will always find reasons to cast doubt on Shakespeare’s authorship, but who cares in the end, Emma Smith wonders
Will we ever know the real George Orwell?
D.J. Taylor explores how the fracture between the person Orwell wanted to be and the person he seemed to be runs through his life and work
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
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