Books
The scars of public school: English Monsters, by James Scudamore, reviewed
‘James Scudamore is now a force in the English novel,’ says Hilary Mantel on the cover of English Monsters, which,…
Let’s leave philosophers to puzzle over the reality of numbers
The reality (or lack thereof) of numbers is the kind of problem some philosophers consider overwhelmingly important, but it’s of…
The good boy of jazz: Dave Brubeck’s time has come round at last
On 8 November 1954, Dave Brubeck’s portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine, accompanied by the words ‘The Joints…
Too plain or too pretty — are we still prejudiced against professional women?
In Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders, the social historian Jane Robinson — whose previous books include histories of suffragettes and bluestockings…
Knowing Thomas Cromwell’s fate only increases the tension: The Mirror & the Light, by Hilary Mantel, reviewed
In 1540, he, himself, Lord Cromwell fell victim to the king’s caprice. His execution brings to a close one of English literature’s great trilogies, says Mark Lawson
How close is humanity to destroying itself?
Humanity has come startlingly close to destroying itself in the 75 or so years in which it has had the…
Rape has always been one of the deadliest weapons of war
Nothing prepared Antony Beevor for this devastating exposé of the systematic use of rape in war and ethnic cleansing
Is it true that men navigate better than women?
Some years ago I participated in a late-night Radio 3 show on exploration and travel. When I left the studio…
Having a baby is like joining a cult — full of other, more capable mothers
When you’re not a mother it’s hard to imagine what motherhood is like. Anyone you know who becomes one assures…
Marina Lewycka’s The Good, the Bad and the Little Bit Stupid is completely bonkers
Faced with Marina Lewycka’s new novel, it’s tempting to say that The Good, the Bad and the Little Bit Stupid…
Cosy, comforting and a bit inconsequential: Here We Are, by Graham Swift, reviewed
There’s something — isn’t there? — of the literary also-ran about Graham Swift. He was on Granta’s first, influential Best…
Pure chutzpah: the breathtaking daring of Operation Moses
Menachem Begin was Israel’s most reviled and misunderstood prime minister. Reviled by Britain for his paramilitary activities against the British…
Dangerously desirable: the white-morph gyr falcon commands sky-high prices
The art of falconry is more than 3,000 years old and possibly as popular now as at any time. Its…
The wizard that was Warhol
In 1983 I was sent to New York to interview Johnny Rotten and I took the opportunity to call on…
Anglo-Chinese misunderstanding: an Oxford don visits 1960s Beijing
This book is a rather startling depiction of Hugh Trevor-Roper’s involvement with the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU), his sponsored…
Shades of the prison house: the ghosts of suicides fill our prisons
As an inmate, Chris Atkins discovered just how violent and chaotic prison life is. His diaries highlight a national scandal – and the dangerous incompetence of the Ministry of Justice, says Will Heaven
Metternich gets a makeover
This is a giant Teutonic forest of a book, to be progressed through with determination as if by seasoned infantry;…
Hell and high water: eco-anxiety dominates Jenny Offill’s latest novel
Lizzie, the narrator of Jenny Offill’s impressive third novel Weather, is ‘enmeshed’ with her brother, according to her psychologist-cum-meditation teacher.…
Why were Kraftwerk such a colossal success?
Everything about Kraftwerk was odd. They had no front man, they seemed to play no instruments and their strange, electronic…
Home was not where the heart was for the Enlightenment’s intellectuals
Emily Thomas is a distinguished academic philosopher who has ‘spent a lot of time by herself getting lost around the…
Wouldn’t the migrant crisis make fantastic reality TV? Timur Vermes’s The Hungry and the Fat reviewed
The context for The Hungry and the Fat, Timur Vermes’s new satirical novel, is not as far-fetched as all that.…
It’s easy to forget how many respectable people embraced eugenics
Between 1923 and 1931 the publisher Routledge produced ‘Today and Tomorrow’, a series of 110 short books by intellectual luminaries…
Dr Livingstone becomes a dead weight: Out of Darkness, Shining Light, by Petina Gappah
The scope of Petina Gappah’s impressive novel is laid out in the prologue: the death of the Victorian explorer David…
The hundreds of languages spoken in London are the city’s greatest glory
Every history of London — and there have been very many — has looked at the importance for the city…
The blistering experience of writing about Samuel Beckett
For those of us with nagging doubts about the value of literary biography, books that show the biographer at work…
