Books
A draining experience: Insignificance, by James Clammer, reviewed
Spare a thought for the white van man. It’s not yet nine on a summer’s morning and already Joseph, a…
The empire that sprang from nowhere under the banner of Islam
When the British formed the basis of their empire in the 1600s by acquiring territories in India and North America,…
Brave new virtual world: The Startup Wife, by Tahmima Anam, reviewed
Welcome to Utopia — not an idyllic arcadia but a secretive tech incubator in a Manhattan office block. Here a…
Russian memoirs are prone to a particular form of angst
Perhaps the secret to understanding Russian history lies in its grammar: it lacks a pluperfect tense. In Latin, English and…
The foghorn’s haunting hoot is a sad loss
Halfway through what must count as one of the more esoteric quests, Jennifer Lucy Allan finds herself on a hill…
An impossible guest: Second Place, by Rachel Cusk, reviewed
A great writer must be prepared to risk ridiculousness — not ridicule, although that may follow, but the possibility that…
Bird-brained: Brood, by Jackie Polzin, reviewed
This is not a novel about four chickens of various character — Gloria, Miss Hennepin County, Gam Gam and Darkness…
Poems are the Duracell batteries of language, says Simon Armitage
Ezra Pound in ABC of Reading: ‘Dichten = condensare.’ Meaning poetry is intensification, ‘the most concentrated form of verbal expression’.…
Good luck enjoying eating salmon ever again
‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by cat videos,’ begins Henry Mance’s How to Love Animals, winningly.…
The sweet smell of success: the story behind Chanel No 5’s popularity
This is a curious book, by turns profound and whimsical. Karl Schlögel, a professor of Eastern European history at Frankfurt,…
The many contradictions of modern motherhood
There are few certainties in life. Death and taxes are the ones regularly trotted out. However, there is another that…
Over the rainbow: D.H. Lawrence’s search for a new way of life
Philip Hensher describes D.H. Lawrence’s restless search of a new way of life
The stuff of everyday life: Real Estate, by Deborah Levy, reviewed
Real Estate is the third and concluding volume of Deborah Levy’s ground-breaking ‘Living Autobiography’. Fans of Levy’s alluring, highly allusive…
Blindness and betrayal still bedevil Britain’s policy in Ireland
Charles Péguy’s adage that everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics is sharply illustrated by the development of the…
A campus novel with a difference: The Netanyahus, by Joshua Cohen, reviewed
Dr Benzion Netanyahu’s reputation precedes him. ‘A true genius, who also happens to be a major statesman and political hero,’…
A pawn in the Great Game: the sad story of Charles Masson
‘Everyone knows the Alexandria in Egypt,’ writes Edmund Richardson, ‘but there were over a dozen more Alexandrias scattered across Alexander…
Stirling Moss’s charmed life in the fast lane
‘Who do you think you are — Stirling Moss?’ a genially menacing traffic cop would ask a hapless motorway transgressor.…
Out-scooping the men: six women reporters of the second world war
Two war correspondents were hitching a lift towards Paris in August 1944 when a sudden wave of German bombers forced…
Arthur Bryant: monstrous chronicler of Merrie England
If you want to judge how much society has changed, you might do worse than visit a few secondhand bookshops.…
Haunted by the past: Last Days in Cleaver Square, by Patrick McGrath, reviewed
At the risk of encroaching on Spectator Competition territory, what is the least surprising thing for any given narrator in…
The evolution of England — from ragbag kingdoms to a centralised state
Alex Burghart describes England’s fitful development from a collection of warring kingdoms into a highly centralised state
Why did Hitler’s imperial dreams take Stalin by surprise?
The most extraordinary thing, still, about Operation Barbarossa is the complete surprise the Wehrmacht achieved. In the early hours of…
Will’s world: Shakespeare as the man in the crowd
Shakespeare’s first biographer was the gossipy antiquarian John Aubrey, who famously described the playwright as ‘not a company keeper’. It…
The gender identity issue: Kathleen Stock puts her head above the parapet
‘Something is afoot,’ wrote the academic philosopher Kathleen Stock in 2018: Beyond the academy, there’s a huge and impassioned discussion…
Cairo in crisis: The Republic of False Truths, by Alaa Al Aswany, reviewed
Certain novels complicate the very notion of literary enjoyment. This, by the author of the international bestseller The Yacoubian Building,…
