Book review
Donna Tartt can do the thrills but not the trauma
Donna Tartt is an expert practitioner of what David Hare has called ‘the higher hokum’. She publishes a long novel…
Queen Victoria, by Matthew Dennison - review
When Prince Albert died in 1861, aged 42, Queen Victoria, after briefly losing the use of her legs, ordered that…
What a coincidence
If you are going to read a novel that plays with literary conventions you want it written with aplomb. In…
The Empress Dowager was a moderniser, not a minx. But does China care?
For susceptible Englishmen of a certain inclination — like Sir Edmund Backhouse or George Macdonald Fraser — the Empress Dowager…
A Strong Song Tows Us, by Richard Burton - review
How minor is minor? ‘Rings a bell’ was more or less the response of two English literature graduates, now successful…
Darling Monster, edited by John Julius Norwich - review
It must have been awful for Diana and Duff Cooper to be separated from their only child during the war,…
England’s 100 best Views, by Simon Jenkins - review
Sam Leith is transported by the finest scenery in England
The Sunflowers Are Mine, by Martin Bailey - review
‘How could a man who has loved light and flowers so much and has rendered them so well, how could…
An Officer and a Gentleman, by Robert Harris - review
The Dreyfus Affair, the furore caused by a miscarriage of justice in France in 1894, is a source of perennial…
Meeting the Enemy, by Richard Van Emden; 1914, by Allan Mallinson - review
The Great War was an obscene and futile conflict laying waste a generation and toppling emperors. Yet here are two…
Guido Fawkes to Damian McBride: Who's spinning now?
When Gordon Brown eventually became aware that his Downing Street was about to be engulfed in the Smeargate scandal, he…
In it together? Matthew d'Ancona's book on the coalition is a huge letdown, says Peter Oborne
There are two ways of being a political journalist. One is to stay on the outside and try to avoid…
Anorexia, addiction, child-swapping — the Lake Poets would have alarmed social services
The last time the general reader was inveigled into the domestic intensities of the Wordsworth circle was by Frances Wilson…
Stephen King isn't as scary as he used to be, but 'Doctor Sleep' is still a cracker
Though alcohol withdrawal is potentially fatal, booze has none of the media-confected glitz of heroin (imagine Will Self boasting of…
Licensed to feel: The new James Bond fusses over furnishings and sprinkles talc
First, an appalling admission: I have never read any of Ian Fleming’s Bond books. Nor have I read any of…
Making It Happen, by Iain Martin - review
Fred Goodwin’s descent from golden boy of British banking to ‘pariah of the decade’ would be the stuff of tragedy…
Walking in Ruins, by Geoff Nicholson - review
Geoff Nicholson is the Maharajah of Melancholy. The quality was there in his novels, it was there in his non-fiction…
Colette’s France, by Jane Gilmour - review
Richard Davenport-Hines on the charmed, dizzy world of the multi-talented Colette
Music at Midnight, by John Drury - review
When John Drury, himself an Anglican divine, told James Fenton (the son of a canon of Christ Church) that he…
Monsieur le Commandant, by Romain Slocombe - review
There can be few characters in modern fiction more unpleasant than Paul-Jean Husson, the narrator in Romain Slocombe’s Monsieur le…
Six Bad Poets, by Christopher Reid - review
Is poetry in good enough health to be made fun of in this way? The irony is that this long,…
Move Along, Please, by Mark Mason - review
Mrs Thatcher was widely believed to have said that ‘any man over the age of 26 who finds himself on…
One Night in Winter, by Simon Sebag Montefiore - review
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s One Night in Winter begins in the hours immediately following the solemn victory parade that marked the…
When Britain Burned the White House, by Peter Snow - review
Peter Snow explains that he decided to look into this extraordinary story when he realised how few people knew about…
As Luck Would Have It, by Derek Jacobi - review
Alan Bennett once overheard an old lady say, ‘I think a knighthood was wasted on Derek Jacobi,’ and I know…
