Book review
What was the secret of Queen Victoria's rebel daughter?
Princess Louise (1848–1939), Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter, was the prettiest and liveliest of the five princesses, and the only one…
How we lost the seasons
... for tomorrow traditional seasonal rituals may just be ghostly memories of a vanished world, says Melanie McDonagh
The Roth of tenderness and of rage
In the autumn of 2012, Philip Roth told a French magazine that his latest book, Nemesis, would be his last.…
Do Manet's asparagus remind you of your struggling long-term relationship?
In calling their book Art as Therapy Alain de Botton and John Armstrong have taken the direct route. They’re not…
Finally, a celebrity memoir worth reading
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
The many attempts to assassinate Trotsky
Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…
How honest was Bernard Berenson?
Sam Leith suspects that even such a distinguished connoisseur as Bernard Berenson did not always play a straight bat
If only Craig Raine subjected his own work to the same critical scrutiny he applies to others'
Debunking reputations is now out of fashion, says Philip Hensher, and Craig Raine should give it up — especially as he always misses the point
The mad, mum-fixated maiden aunt of modernism
Marianne Moore’s poems are notoriously ‘difficult’ but her personality and the circumstances of her life are as fascinating today as…
Curtains for kitty! How to care for cats — and how to kill them
The New Yorker has always had a peculiar affinity with cats, perhaps because they have a lot in common —…
Hugo Rifkind's My Week reminds me why it's worth getting up on Saturdays
‘Nothing’s funny any more’ has become the daily mantra of this magazine’s cartoon editor, Michael Heath. Thanks to Leveson, political…
The book that Boris should give to all seniors, along with their Freedom Passes
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a story for the older reader. One might go so far as to suggest…
Margaret Drabble tries to lose the plot
Halfway through her new novel, Margaret Drabble tells us of Anna, the pure gold baby of the title, ‘There was…
Ann Patchett's new book will win you over, in spite of yourself
Ann Patchett’s novels revel in the tightly constructed ecosystems imagined for their characters: an opera singer besieged among diplomats in…
Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor - review
‘She wrote fiction?’ Even today, with the admirable ladies at Virago nearly finished reissuing her dozen novels, Elizabeth Taylor remains…
A book on Art Deco that's a work of art in itself — but where's the Savoy, Claridge's and the Oxo Tower?
Over the past 45 years, there have been two distinct and divergent approaches to Art Deco. One of them —…
'God has given me a new Turkish colleague called Mustapha Kunt...'
Under normal circumstances, Simon Garfield’s chatty and informative excursion into the history of letter-writing would be a book to recommend.…
When Francis Davison made me judge — and burn — his art
In 1983, Damien Hirst saw an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of the collages of Francis Davison which ‘blew him…
The Last Knight, by Robert O’Byrne - review
I have to declare an interest: for many years the Knight and I were the closest of friends until a…
A book that's inspired by a movie (for a change)
Books become films every day of the week; more rarely does someone feel inspired to write a book after seeing…
The wounded Kennedy – and the people who gave him strength
Ten years ago, a determined historian transformed our picture of John F. Kennedy. Robert Dallek had finally got his hands…
The men who demolished Victorian Britain
Anyone with a passing interest in old British buildings must get angry at the horrors inflicted on our town centres…
American Smoke, by Iain Sinclair - review
If you have read Iain Sinclair’s books you will know that he is a stylist with a love of language.…
The best cookery books of 2013
Nigel Slater’s books lead the field in cookery book design, but his latest, Eat: The Little Book of Fast Food…
The vengeance of Alex Ferguson
For a quarter of a century Sir Alex Ferguson bestrode football’s narrow world like a colossus. Like his predecessor knight-manager,…
