Books
Where would any writer be without a room of their own?
If you seek out the home of an admired writer, you might find, as with Ernest Hemingway’s house in Havana,…
For Jews in Occupied France, survival was a matter of luck
Late in his life, I asked my uncle René about his exploits in wartime France. What I knew was that…
The West is failing to rise to the challenge of coronavirus
Having apparently shaken off the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine is now in…
Gustav Mahler’s bid for greatness: the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’
Gustav Mahler was a passionate enthusiast for the colossal in music. Even so, his mighty eighth symphony stands apart, says Philip Hensher
The mean streets of 1960s Soho: Bent, by Joe Thomas, and other crime fiction reviewed
Brian De Palma brings his film director’s eye to Are Snakes Necessary? (Hard Case, £16.99), written in collaboration with the…
Until he discovered pop music, life was all Greek to Pete Paphides
Pop music has always been, to those who love it, to some degree tribal or factional; fans like to carve…
How I became Miss World 1970
‘Miss World 1970’ is the rather glorious title that Jennifer Hosten won. That was the year that the contest, then…
Jan Morris, at 93, meditates on what it means to be old
‘I’m getting rather tired of me,’ begins Jan Morris in one of the diary entries in Thinking Again, almost certainly…
Violence and cross-dressing in post-bellum Tennessee: A Thousand Moons, by Sebastian Barry, reviewed
It was perhaps a mistake to re-read Sebastian Barry’s award-winning Days Without End before its sequel, A Thousand Moons, since…
Master of disguise: the British genius who concealed whole Allied battle lines
Early one morning in October 1874 a barge carrying three barrels of benzoline and five tons of gunpowder blew up…
Plumbing the mysteries of poltergeists
This is a paranormal book — by which I mean it exists in a truly out of the ordinary netherworld…
As intricate as an origami sculpture: The Lost Future of Pepperharrow reviewed
Steampunk, a shapeshifting and unpredictable genre, has a way of subverting the past, mischievously disordering the universe with historical what-ifs.…
A woman’s lot is not a happy one in: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 reviewed
‘Buy pink baby clothes,’Kim Jiyoung, the protagonist of this bestselling South Korean novel is told at the obstetrician’s surgery. Jiyoung’s…
A dark journey into a fanatical underworld
Two years ago, the counter-extremist analyst Julia Ebner decided she needed to delve deeper into the extremists trying to disrupt…
America’s love-hate relationship with Shakespeare
Emma Smith examines the peculiarly disruptive effect of Shakespeare’s plays on American society over the centuries
The Renaissance in 50 shades of grey
The Mediterranean-centred era spanning a century or so either side of 1492 is filled to the brim with stories. There…
Tales from behind the veil: Moroccan women talk about lies and sex
The Moroccan-born Leïla Slimani has made her name writing novels of propulsive intensity. Lullaby, the story of a nanny who…
If you haven’t read Louise Erdrich, now’s the time to start: The Night Watchman reviewed
Louise Erdrich’s grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, was tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa when the US Congress imposed…
The Big Three who ended the Cold War
Historians argue endlessly and pointlessly about the extent to which the human factor rather than brute circumstance determines the course…
Adam Mars-Jones’s protagonist has disarmingly low self-esteem: Box Hill reviewed
Short, fat and shy, the protagonist of Adam Mars-Jones’s latest novel doesn’t have much going for him; even his name…
Rescued by the Goldberg Variations
Were this a less good book than it is, it would be called How Bach Can Help You Grieve. As…
The inside story of working for Carmen Callil
Forty-seven years ago, Virago paperbacks, with their stylish green spines and hint-of-the-transgressive colophons of a red apple with a bite…
A book that could save lives: Adam Rutherford’s How to Argue with a Racist reviewed
In the award-winning musical Avenue Q, filthy-minded puppets sang about schadenfreude, internet porn, loud sex, the uselessness of an English…
The children’s hour: first novels brim with close family observations
Kiley Reid’s Philadelphia-set debut, Such a Fun Age (Bloomsbury, £12.99), is a satire on white saviour syndrome, woke culture and…
Carve his name with pride: Andrew Ziminsky rebuilds the West Country
Andrew Ziminski is the man who rebuilt the West Country. For 30 years, this skilled stonemason has renovated some of…
