Books
Bernardine Evaristo sets a rousing example of ‘never giving up’
Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto — part instructional guide for artists, part call to arms for equality, part literary memoir —shimmers with…
Earthly paradises: the best of the year’s gardening books
Important historic gardens fall into two main categories: those made by one person, whose vision has been carefully preserved down…
The nearest thing to Paul McCartney’s autobiography: his guide to the Beatles’ songbook
Whatever your favourite theory of creativity, Paul McCartney has a cheery thumbs-up to offer. You think the secret is putting…
Far from being our dullest king, George V was full of surprises
‘Victorian’ stuck, and ‘Edwardian’ too. But ‘Georgian’, as an adjective associated with the next monarch in line, never caught on.…
Even the greatest tennis players need to be adored
Louis MacNeice once wrote that if you want to know what chasing the Grail is like, ask Lancelot not Galahad.…
A wife for King Lear — J.R. Thorp imagines another Lady Macbeth
Shakespeare wastes no time on Lear’s backstory; we meet the brutal old autocrat as he divides his kingdom between two…
Dark days in the Balkans: life under Enver Hoxha and beyond
For many in the West, Albania remains as remote and shadowy as the fictional Syldavia of the Tintin comics. The…
What motivates Peter Thiel apart from the desire for more wealth?
If you’ve only heard one thing about Peter Thiel (and many have heard nothing at all) it is that he…
Can the fiasco of the Dieppe Raid really be excused?
In my mother’s final days we had a long conversation about the second world war. I asked if she’d ever…
Love in a cold climate: Snow Country, by Sebastian Faulks, reviewed
In the months before the outbreak of the first world war, Anton Heideck arrives in Vienna. Family life offered him…
The Great God Pan is all things to all men
Pan’s name is thought to derive from ‘paean’, the ancient Greek verb meaning ‘to pasture’. His half-man, half-goat form reflected…
Homage to the greatest 18th-century poet you’ve never heard of
If you were to glance only briefly at the title of the Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s prose debut you…
Henry VIII’s windfall from the monasteries was shockingly short-term
In 1536 there were 850 monastic houses in England and Wales; just four years later they were all gone. The…
Celebrating Tony Wilson, the founder of Factory Records
To many people Tony Wilson was a bigmouth Mancunian, brash music impresario and jobbing television presenter. But to the generation…
It’s time female fraudsters received their due
If you’re after jewel thieves, bank robbers and gold smugglers, look no further than Caitlin Davies’s Queens of the Underworld.…
Yours disgusted, H.G. Wells: the young writer finds marriage insufferable
After a wretched childhood, H.G. Wells was ruthless in making up for lost time, says Frances Wilson
New tactics are needed for the wars of the future
The strategic bankruptcy of the West has twice so far this century demanded that our brave soldiers risk their bodies…
Life’s dark side: the catastrophic world of Stephen Crane
Long before Ernest Hemingway wasted his late career playing the he-man on battlefields and in fishing boats, or Norman Mailer…
Use it or lose it: has the public library had its day?
I write this in a garret a few doors down from the public library in Muswell Hill, north London. It…
Andrew Mitchell relives the agony of Plebgate
Andrew Mitchell, as he readily admits, was born into the British Establishment. Almost from birth, his path was marked out:…
Mass hysteria in Massachusetts: the 17th-century witch crisis in America
One September day in 1649, in the frontier town of Springfield, Massachusetts, Anthony Dorchester returned from church to the house…
It’s the fisherman who’s truly hooked
Trying to catch fish with rod and line is a pursuit that, for many, goes far beyond the pleasant passing…
The revival of the blacksmith’s craft — a new generation goes at it hammer and tongs
At Intelligent Life, the Economistmagazine where I worked for some years, it was easy to feel intellectually challenged. Even the…
Bright, beautiful and deceptively simple: the art of the linocut
Charlotte Hobson describes the complicated relationship of two artists who championed simplicity
Bach’s Cello Suites represent a spiritual meditation — from the Nativity to the Resurrection
‘One player on four strings, with a bow.’ That’s what Bach’s six Cello Suites boil down to, says Steven Isserlis.…
