Books
Sharp practice
Thackeray’s amoral schemer is recast as a ruthless tabloid journalist, splashing gossip, hacking phones and pursuing personal vendettas
The best of liberal thought
Shocked by the authoritarianism of Cuba and the USSR, the Peruvian writer turned his back on communism in the 1960s, influenced by seven liberal European thinkers
Henri Christophe, King of Haiti, was not such a ridiculous figure
He certainly had delusions of grandeur, but his ambition to educate a people newly emerged from slavery showed a true visionary spirit
Day of vengeance
A festive gathering in the depths of rural France is fatally disrupted by a trio of sinister strangers
Allies, not friends
The initial reluctance of Britain, France, Poland and the US to share intelligence allowed the Nazis to hone their deception skills to early advantage
Here be dragons, dog-headed men and women growing on trees
Justin Marozzi celebrates the medieval naturalist Zakariyya Qazwini and his breathtaking bid to capture the marvels of creation
Was the closure of the grammar schools really such a tragedy?
Peter Hitchens is in no doubt that it was. But a dominant, self-perpetuating meritocratic elite, all head and no heart, might also have presented problems
Victorian science fiction soon ceased to be fanciful
Iwan Rhys Morus describes how novelists’ futuristic visions began to be realised by engineers – though the course of invention is more random than he imagines
Cakes and ale
There has never been a golden age or even a very stable one, says Diane Purkiss, in a serious consideration of how English food has changed over time
Women of no importance
From their brothels in lawless 1850s Monterrey, Eliza and Jean set out discover why their fellow workers are going missing
The radicals of 17th-century England began to think the unthinkable
Few periods match the British 17th century for turmoil and idealism.No wonder historians have repeatedly been drawn to it, says Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Sidney Reilly, Ace of Spies, remains an enigma
‘James Bond is just a piece of nonsense I dreamt up,’ the former naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming once said.…
Tears and laughter: We All Want Impossible Things, by Catherine Newman, reviewed
Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and she’s craving the lemon cake she once got from Dean & Deluca deli…
A treasury of wisdom about the writing life
In the penultimate entry of Toby Litt’s A Writer’s Diary, an autofictional daily record of a writer named Toby Litt…
What did indigenous Americans make of Europe?
The most influential Native American visitor to Europe in colonial times was a fiction. The protagonist of L’Ingénu, Voltaire’s novel…
Spare reviewed: Harry is completely disingenuous – or an idiot
What makes the Duke of Sussex believe he can lead a charge against practitioners of the written word, wonders Philip Hensher
The films of Quentin Tarantino’s childhood
The X-rated movies he’d seen by the age of ten included Deliverance, Taxi Driver and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – which he’d then discuss with his child psychologist
Singeing the King of Spain’s beard was one provocation too many
According to a new history of the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth I was chiefly to blame for the crisis of 1588
Nehru’s plans for a new India were sadly short-lived
Despite the leader’s commitment to secularism and democracy, the persecution of Muslims and Dalits continued after independence
Hiding out in wartime Italy: A Silence Shared, by Lalla Romano
Giulia retreats to her isolated farmhouse to avoid bombardment in Turin, and grows increasingly attached to the partisan couple she shelters
Not just wet, but ‘dripping wet’ – how the tabloids viewed Lord Woolf
The former Lord Chief Justice confesses that some of his liberal ideas didn’t turn out so well in practice
The Hope Diamond brought nothing but despair
Hettie Judah describes how its various owners were plagued by bankruptcy, divorce, suicide, madness – and savaging by wild dogs
The Britain Elizabeth II acceded to was barely recognisable within a decade
Steam trains, historic monuments and the family grocer were replaced by motorways, tower blocks and supermarkets. But at least there was humaner legislation
When street hawkers were a vital part of London life
Unfairly dismissed as hucksters and fishwives, itinerant traders drove the capital’s expansion for centuries, says Charlie Taverner
Britain’s lost rainforests
Guy Shrubsole laments that the temperate rainforest that once covered a fifth of Britain has now shrunk to pitiful fragments on its western fringe
