Books
Latin America in crisis again
It wasn’t so long ago that British readers, on hearing about the incompetence and corruption of Latin America’s political leaders,…
The roots of humanity remain obscure
To comprehend ourselves and the future of humankind we have to understand where we came from. Unlike the approximately 350,000…
In search of Noëlle: Invisible Ink, by Patrick Modiano, reviewed
At some point in his twilit, enigmatic novels of vanished lives and buried memories, Patrick Modiano likes to jolt his…
How Hitler’s great gamble nearly paid off
Do we need another wrist-breaking book about Adolf Hitler, the Third Reich and the second world war? Since Ian Kershaw…
Is Indian cricket no longer cricket?
There is nothing in world sport, ‘nothing in the history of the human race’, Ramachandra Guha modestly reckons, that can…
Does William Barents deserve to have a sea named after him?
Narratives of frozen beards in polar hinterlands never lose their appeal. Most of the good stories have been told, but…
The farce of the Nobel Peace Prize
Betraying the Nobel opens with a detonation from Michael Nobel, Alfred’s great-grandnephew. The vice-chairman and then chairman of the Nobel…
Murder in Richmond Park: House with No Doors, by Jeff Noon, reviewed
It’s 1981 in Richmond, south-west London. Detective Inspector Henry Hobbes is called out to a rundown house where the octogenarian…
George Pell: Behind Bars
This is the prison diary that should never have been written because Cardinal George Pell should never have been in…
Summer books
Bad year, good books
A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love
There was an acidic bravura and beauty in P.J. O’Rourke’s early journalism and a gleefulness in the ease with which…
Spot the literary character
For answers, visit spectator.com.au/2020/12/answers-to-spot-the-literary-character. Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Will we soon see the end of conservatism as we know it?
The future of conservatism depends crucially on its ability to withstand the new hard right, says William Hague
The only man who didn’t want to be Cary Grant was Cary Grant himself
Cary Grant was a hoax so sublime his creator struggled to escape him. He was a metaphor, too, for the…
The End of Times and the coming of the Antichrist
Two things it may be wise to know before picking up this relatively short and surprisingly cheerful brand spanking NEW…
Mozart the infant prodigy was also a child of the Enlightenment
‘My dear young man: don’t take it too hard,’ Joseph II counsels a puppyish Mozart, the colour of his hair…
Barbara Amiel is a cross between Medusa and Maria Callas
If this book becomes a Netflix blockbuster, as it surely must, Barbara Amiel presents us with an opening image. She…
How we laughed: the golden days of Bananarama
Saying you don’t like Bananarama is like saying you don’t like summer or Marilyn Monroe — a sure sign of…
Labyrinthine tales: We All Hear Stories in the Dark, by Robert Shearman, reviewed
When the estimable Andy Miller, the host of the Backlisted podcast, recommended a new collection of short stories on Twitter,…
Christiaan Huygens – hero of time and space
This book, soaked like the Dutch Republic itself ‘in ink and paint’, is enchanting to the point of escapism. The…
The map as a work of art
’Tis the season of complacency, when we sit in warmth and shiver vicariously with Mary and Joseph out in the…
The Enlightenment was a many-splendoured thing
History used to be so much easier. There were the Wars of the Roses, then the Reformation, the Civil War,…
All change: The Arrest, by Jonathan Lethem, reviewed
This is an Exquisite Corpse of a novel — or if you prefer another name for that particular game, Heads,…
What is so special about heavy metal?
Ever since my early youth I have loved, followed and respected a certain music genre that some people consider strange,…
Office boy
For most of us, going to work means going to an office, to sit at a desk and perform bureaucratic…
