Books
Whodunits shouldn’t be dismissed as a guilty pleasure
What a weird lot crime writers are. I don’t come to this conclusion lightly, since I’m a crime writer myself,…
Old rockers with a Peter Pan syndrome
What do the following individuals have in common: a political activist from Suffolk; a chartered psychologist from Oxfordshire, who enjoys…
Reflections on water in the Middle East
These Bodies of Water begins dramatically (as befits a book derived from Sabrina Mahfouz’s Royal Court show A History of…
The lonely genius of Bronislava Nijinska
Bronislava Nijinska was constantly undermined in her lifetime – most cruelly by her brother, says Sarah Crompton
Is Anna Wintour human?
Apparently Anna Wintour wants to be seen as human, and Amy Odell’s biography goes some way to helping her achieve…
The sad fate of Edna St Vincent Millay – America’s once celebrated poet
In June 1957, Robert Lowell attended a poetry reading by E.E. Cummings. Sitting dutifully and deferentially alongside him were Allen…
The danger of learning too much from Covid
When Ray Bradbury was asked if his dystopian vision in Fahrenheit 451 would become a reality, he replied: ‘I don’t…
The treatment of mental illness continues to be a scandal
There is much more desperation in this searching and enlightening history than there are remedies. Andrew Scull is a distinguished…
Travels in time and space: Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel, reviewed
It’s a bold writer who confronts a major historical moment such as a pandemic before it’s over, but Emily St.…
The history of Nazism in small objects
‘I can’t cook,’ writes the historian Karina Urbach, ‘which is probably why it took me so long to realise that…
Operation Chariot succeeded because it was unthinkable
Eighty years ago, just after midnight on 28 March 1942, the British destroyer HMS Campbeltown crept up the estuary of…
For ruthless inhumanity, the Bolsheviks were unbeatable
Sara Wheeler describes the appalling brutality of the Russian Revolution and its far-reaching aftermath
Atomic reading
So you think you know the story of Britain’s notorious atomic tests in Australia? In that respect, the name of…
Light and shade in the Holy Land – a century in spectacular images
Justin Marozzi on the troubled history of a small, much-coveted country
A botched coup: the desperate Cato Street conspiracy
Almost half of the terrorists hadn’t even turned up. Still, on the night of 23 February 1820, 25 men, including…
Fresh air and fascism in the Bavarian Alps
The village of Oberstdorf lies in the Bavarian Alps, geographically remote but, as this gripping book demonstrates, deeply etched by…
Did postmodernism pave the way for Donald Trump?
David Shields is an American author who has decided to collate many of the questions he’s been asked in interviews…
Snafu at Slough House: Bad Actors, by Mick Herron, reviewed
Reviewers who make fancy claims for genre novels tend to sound like needy show-offs or hard-of-thinking dolts. So be it:…
A meditation on exile and the meaning of home
What does home mean? Where your dead are buried, as Zulus believe? Or where you left your heart, as a…
Has liberalism destroyed itself?
According to Vladimir Putin, liberalism is an ‘obsolete’ doctrine, a worn-out political philosophy no longer fit for purpose. In this…
A bitter sectarian divide: Young Mungo, by Douglas Stuart, reviewed
Douglas Stuart has a rare gift. The Scottish writer, whose debut novel Shuggie Bain deservedly won the 2020 Booker Prize,…
Messy family matters: Bad Relations, by Cressida Connolly, reviewed
Cressida Connolly’s new novel begins with a couple of endings. It’s spring 1855, and on the battlefields of the Crimea…
Patterns in the grass: The Perfect Golden Circle, by Benjamin Myers, reviewed
The Perfect Golden Circle is ostensibly about male friendship. Two men, flotsam of the 1980s – Calvert, a Falklands veteran,…
What the Marxist Tariq Ali gets wrong about Winston Churchill
Tariq Ali, the Marxist writer and activist, believes that a ‘Churchill cult’ is ‘drowning all serious debate’ about the wartime…
All talk and no trousers: is Oxford really to blame for Brexit?
Attacks on British elitism usually talk about Oxbridge, but Simon Kuper argues that it is specifically Oxford that is the…
