Books
For Ravi Shankar, music was a sort of religion
When musicians from outside the Anglo-American pop mainstream achieve success in the West, there are conflicting reactions. Seun Kuti, the…
Britain can be as prone to fascism as any other nation
It’s easy to dismiss the fascistic ideologues who populate Graham Macklin’s book as reactionary cranks of no significance. It’s also…
A paranormal romance that seems to go nowhere: NVK, by Temple Drake, reviewed
NVK, which is the IATA (International Air Transport Association) code for Narvik’s old airport, is in this instance Naemi Vieno…
The trade in cadavers is rife with scandal
John Troyer, the director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, has moves. You can…
Excess and incest were meat and drink to the Byrons
Excess, incest and marital misery were in the blood. Frances Wilson uncovers several generations of infamous Byrons
The devastating effects of bigamy: Silver Sparrow, by Tayari Jones, reviewed
Conservative estimates place the number of those in America with more than one spouse as up to 100,000, but the…
There’s nothing romantic about Cornish fishermen, whatever tales they may spin
Lamorna Ash came to the fishing port of Newlyn in south-west Cornwall to write a memoir. This is not unusual.…
At last, a novel about the art world that rings true: Annalena Mcfee’s Nightshade reviewed
On a winter’s night an artist of moderately exalted reputation and in lateish middle age journeys across London, away from…
Has Notre-Dame ever been a symbol of unity for the French?
From the kitchen of her apartment on the Quai de la Tournelle in Paris, the journalist and broadcaster Agnès Poirier…
Annie Ernaux looks back at her teenage self – and sees a stranger
How can you recover the teenage girl you were? Not just recall the memories and recount the events — this…
His son’s death may have inspired some of Shakespeare’s greatest lines, but he never recovered from the loss
Maggie O’Farrell is much possessed by death. Her first novel, After You’d Gone (2000), chronicled the inner life of a…
When six of her 12 children went mad, Mimi Galvin did her best to make to light of it
Don Galvin and Mimi Blayney married in December 1944. It was a shotgun wedding. They had been high school sweethearts.…
Even Anne Tyler can’t make a solitary Baltimore janitor sound interesting
Micah Mortimer, the strikingly unproactive protagonist of Anne Tyler’s 23rd novel, is a man of such unswerving routine that his…
Wordsworth may have been partially eclipsed by his fellow Romantics, but his life was far from dull
Wordsworth’s reputation has been too long in decline, says Tom Williams. In the space of a decade he transformed English poetry, and his earlier works remain astonishing
Violence and infidelity on sun-drenched Hydra: A Theatre for Dreamers, by Polly Samson, reviewed
The beautiful Greek island of Hydra became home to a bohemian community of expats in the 1960s, including the Canadian…
The Far East Campaign of 1941-5 is the new focus of Daniel Todman’s comprehensive history
To begin not at the beginning but at the end of the beginning. Or rather, to begin at another beginning,…
Greg Jenner’s survey of celebrities through the ages has a distinctly Horrible Histories feel
Good writing about celebrity is scant. It has few poets, because it takes depth to go truly shallow (I’d nominate…
King Solomon’s lost city will remain lost forever
Armageddon began as Har Megiddo, the Hill of Megiddo in northern Israel. The theological aspect is Christian. For Jews, ancient…
Male violence pulses through Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock
‘It’s a woman’s thing, creation,’ says Sarah,a girl accused of witchcraft in 18th-century Scotland, in one of the three storylines…
Nature fights back with tooth and claw as we persist in destroying it
Where to turn in anxious and febrile times? One answer is to nature, or the ‘non-human living world’, which, despite…
From Liverpool’s Cavern to the world stage: how the Beatles became a global phenomenon
Alan Johnson describes how four young men from Liverpool revived Britain, healed America and brought joy to millions
A love letter to San Francisco’s mean streets
Recollections of My Non-Existence is the Rebecca Solnit book I have been waiting for. I was born four years after…
Even in the Swinging Sixties, Ray Davies was feeling nostalgic
At first glance, nostalgia does not seem like a subject much suited to exploration via the medium of the pop…
What makes Thomas Piketty so sure he can save the world?
The French economist, statistician and polymath Thomas Piketty sprang to fame in 2013 with a daunting tome, Capital in the…
To hell with hell: Bart Ehrman debunks the Christian belief in perpetual torment
Here is a sobering thought for anyone involved in the world of finance. Those who charge interest when they lend…
