Books
Where are the Henry Kissingers when we need them?
It was not until I went to Harvard in 1988 to take a year out from the Foreign Office that…
Political biographies to enjoy in lockdown
Here are ten political biographies, with a leavening of the classics, for those with time to kill in the present…
Another alien in our midst: Pew, by Catherine Lacey, reviewed
It needs authorial guts to write a novel in which details are shrouded, meaning is concealed and little is certain.…
William Sitwell’s history of eating out reminds us painfully of what we’re missing
In the concluding chapter of this book the Daily Telegraph’s restaurant critic and recovering vegan-baiter William Sitwell muses on the…
We don’t talk of a ‘working father’ — so why do we still refer to a ‘working mother’?
The phrase ‘working mother’ ought to be as redundant sounding as ‘working father’ would be if anyone ever said that:…
The art of negotiation: Peace Talks, by Tim Finch, reviewed
Early on in Tim Finch’s hypnotic novel Peace Talks, the narrator — the diplomat Edvard Behrends, who facilitates international peace…
Without Joseph Banks, Cook’s first voyage might have been a failure
When the wealthy young Joseph Banks announced that he intended joining Captain Cook’s expedition to Tahiti to observe the Transit…
The symbolism of Orion, the hunter of the heavens
What happened in the rites of Eleusis is a mystery. So are all the unwritten parts of human history. Our…
The deserted village green: is this the end of cricket as we know it?
Imagine an archetypal English scene and it’s likely you’re picturing somewhere rural. Despite losing fields and fields each year to…
Much-hyped technological innovation isn’t necessarily progress
Modern advances in communication technology, computer power and medical science can sometimes be so startling as to seem almost like…
Walt Whitman’s poetry can change your life
To describe a new book as ‘eagerly awaited’ is almost unpardonable. Yet Mark Doty’s What is the Grass: Walt Whitman…
Roger Scruton’s swan song: salvation through Parsifal
This is Roger Scruton’s final book. Parsifal was Wagner’s final opera. Both works are intended to be taken as Last…
A ‘loneliness pandemic’ could prove as dangerous as coronavirus
Adrian Woolfson explains the essence of pandemics – and how we can expect many more of them
Would you kill for a cup of coffee?
In the winter of 1939, at the San Francisco Golden Gate trade fair, an advertorial film called Behind the Cup…
From ‘divine Caesar’ to Hitler’s lapdog – the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini
Mussolini dreamed of a new Roman empire and dominion over the Mediterranean. Two decades later he was hanging by his feet in a public square, as Ian Thomson relates
Sadness and scandal: Hinton, by Mark Blacklock, reviewed
In 1886 the British mathematician and schoolmaster Charles Howard Hinton presented himself to the police at Bow Street, London to…
Flower power: symbols of romance and revolution
Critics have argued over the meaning of the great golden flower head to which Van Dyck points in his ‘Self-Portrait…
How not to get away from it all in the Hebrides
Some accounts of moving to the countryside are aspirational and inspiring, but this book is more of a ‘how not…
René Dreyfus: the racing driver detested by the Nazis
I have driven a racing car. On television, it looks like a smooth and scientific matter. It is not. A…
Is this the last round in the great celebrity Punch and Judy show?
It’s been tough recently being Woody Allen, something that didn’t look too easy to begin with. Last year Amazon breached…
Why are musicologists so indifferent to their subjects’ love lives?
People often say that the battle for male gay rights has been won, at least in the West, and that…
When Idi Amin threatened to shoot the cook
Private chefs keep many secrets and are expected to go to their graves without sharing a morsel of gossip about…
A Wiltshire mystery: A Saint in Swindon, by Alice Jolly, reviewed
This novella is suited to our fevered times. Scheduled to coincide with the Swindon spring festival of literature, now cancelled,…
Short stories to enjoy in lockdown
In these circumstances there’s a temptation to reach for the longest novel imaginable. If you’re not going to read Proust…
A smaller man
Never trust a person who keeps a diary. After all, who keeps a diary other than someone who wants subsequently…
