Books
Capital entertainment: how the West End became the playground of London
The West End was always something a little apart. Some years ago, I used to go drinking with a man…
Gay abandon: Islands of Mercy, by Rose Tremain, reviewed
Rose Tremain has followed her masterly The Gustav Sonata with an altogether different novel. In 1865, Clorinda Morrissey, a 38-year-old…
Why fungi might solve the world’s problems
The biologist Merlin Sheldrake is an intriguing character. In a video promoting the publication of his book Entangled Life, which…
The magic of JFK remains undimmed
It’s easy to forget that John F. Kennedy lived such a short life. At 43, he was the second youngest…
Too much learning is a dangerous thing
It is often said that the left does not understand human nature. Yet it is difficult to think of anything…
Primal longing: Blue Ticket, by Sophie Macintosh, reviewed
Sophie Macintosh’s Blue Ticket is not classic feminist dystopia. Yes, it is concerned with legislated fertility, a world where women’s…
Is it possible that Neanderthals had a spiritual life?
When I studied anthropology back in the early 1980s, Neanderthals were still largely the bulk-browed brutes of yore, grunting in…
The story of Sealand – a most improbable sovereign state
In 2012, the editors of Vice ran an article aimed at would-be contributors to their self-avowedly edgy magazine headed ‘Never…
As Lucian Freud’s fame increases his indiscretions multiply
Staying with Peregrine Eliot (later 10th Earl of St Germans) at Port Eliot in Cornwall, Lucian Freud remembered that the…
Forlorn Plorn: The Dickens Boy, by Thomas Keneally, reviewed
Parents are always terrified of bad family history repeating itself. Prince Albert dreaded his son Bertie turning into a roué…
The South Sea Company’s bonds were never meant to be a scam
In Money for Nothing, Thomas Levenson brings us into the story of the South Sea Bubble by writing about the…
Not such a hero: the tarnished legend of Robin Hood
Britain’s two most famous legendary figures, King Arthur and Robin Hood, remain enduringly and endearingly elusive, and thus ever-fascinating: Arthur…
Portrait of a paranoiac: Death in Her Hands, by Ottessa Moshfegh, reviewed
Like Ottessa Moshfegh’s first novel Eileen (2015), Death in Her Hands plays with the conventions of noir. Vesta Gul, a…
The paradox of Graham Greene – searching for peace in the world’s warzones
Graham Greene was constantly searching for peace of mind along with escapist thrills, says Nicholas Shakespeare
When Britannia ruled the southern waves
In 1798, Tipu Sultan of Mysore sent an embassy to Mauritius. At home, he had fought the British and seen…
Treasures or clutter? The problem of knowing what to keep
Every so often the past makes a pass at you. An old school report, a train ticket, a curl from…
My dazzling chum: Mayflies, by Andrew O’Hagan, reviewed
Presumably because a small part of it takes place in Salford, the epigraph to Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel consists of…
Never a dull sentence: the journalism of Harry Perry Robinson
Is Boris Johnson a fan of Harry Perry Robinson? If he isn’t, he really ought to be. Reading this absorbing…
A story without redemption: The Lying Life of Adults, by Elena Ferrante, reviewed
‘I don’t at all hate lies,’ Elena Ferrante explained in Frantumaglia, her manifesto for authorial anonymity. ‘I find them useful…
She just keeps rollin’ along: Colombia’s Magdalena River
As Colombia comes out of 50 years of civil war and into a still precarious peace, with some 220,000 dead,…
Toussaint Louverture: the true hero of Haiti
Toussaint Louverture’s ‘crazy dream’ for Haiti has still to be realised, says Amy Wilentz
Bombs over London: V for Victory, by Lissa Evans, reviewed
Lissa Evans has been single-handedly rescuing the Hampstead novel from its reputation of being preoccupied by pretension and middle-class morality.…
Should we all be prepping for the end of days?
In the Covid-19 crisis the calamity-howlers have found a vindication: go back to survival mode and bunker down because nobody…
Beauty and the beast: Jane Birkin’s love affair with Serge Gainsbourg
I met Jane Birkin’s parents, who flit across these pages. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an actress in Noël Coward…
In just eight years Selim I became ‘God’s Shadow on Earth’
Faber must take a rather dim view of British readers’ historical awareness these days. This is a biography of one…
