Books
Anthony Holden is nostalgic for journalism’s good old bad old days
After a career spanning 50 years, 40 books and about a million parties, Anthony Holden has written a memoir. Based…
The life of René Magritte was even more surprising than his art
René Magritte’s life, so outwardly respectable, was as full of surprises as his art, says Philip Hensher
A feast for geeks: The Making of Incarnation, by Tom McCarthy, reviewed
Since the publication of his debut, Remainder, Tom McCarthy has established himself as the Christopher Nolan of literary fiction: his…
A macabre meditation on psoriasis
Obsessed with purity and pain, the boundaries of blame and innocence, Skin is a fascinating meditation on psoriasis, the long-lasting…
With Elizabeth Stuart as monarch, might the English civil war have been avoided?
Many girls dream about their favourite princesses. Elizabeth Stuart, a princess herself, took this fantasy a step further and modelled…
How Shane MacGowan became Ireland’s prodigal son
I once stood on a Dublin street with Shane MacGowan and watched little old ladies who can’t ever have been…
How fears of popery led to a century of turmoil in ‘the land of fallen angels’
Stuart England did not do its anti-Catholicism by halves. In the late 1670s and early 1680s, a popular feature of…
Were the Ottoman Turks as European as they thought themselves?
This is the best of times to be writing history, since so much of what has been taken for granted,…
More penny dreadful than Dickensian: Lily, by Rose Tremain, reviewed
Rose Tremain’s 15th novel begins with a favoured schmaltzy image of high Victoriana: it is a night (if not dark…
BOOKS OF THE YEAR II — a further selection of the books chosen by our regular reviewers
A further selection of the books enjoyed by some of our regular reviewers in 2021
The true superhero is Douglas Wolk – who has read through 27,000 Marvel comics
In March 1963, the Fantastic Four had a fractious encounter with Spider-Man and a dust-up with the Hulk — a…
Elephants walk on tiptoes — but can they dance? This year’s stocking-fillers explore such puzzles
It’s almost a shock to admit it, but this year’s gift books aren’t bad at all. It’s even possible that,…
It’s a wonder any of our great country houses survived the 20th century
One of Adrian Tinniswood’s recent books, The Long Weekend, is a portrait of country house life in the interwar years.…
Satire misfires: Our Country Friends, by Gary Shteyngart, reviewed
It is, as you’ve possibly noticed, a tricky time for old-school American liberals, now caught between increasingly extreme versions of…
Rationality is like a muscle that needs constant flexing
In the 1964 film My Fair Lady after Colonel Pickering has secured the help of an old friend to pull…
The slippery stuff of slime: should we loathe it so much?
As humans, we are supposed to have an aversion to slime. It should repel us. Objects and organisms that might…
Books of the Year I — chosen by our regular reviewers
Reviewers choose the books they have most enjoyed reading in 2021 — and a few that have disappointed them
Defying the tech giants: The Every, by Dave Eggers, reviewed
Those for whom Dave Eggers’s name evokes only his much praised memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) may…
The art of seizing the moment in photographic portraiture
A Tatler photographer once told me that the secret to taking a good photo was the three Ts: tum, tits,…
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…
