Depression
From bitter loss to sweet relief: baking as therapy
This is a gentle, lovely book. It will, I’m sure, appeal to many an aspiring cook and baker, and should…
A novel about depression that doesn’t depress: Starling Days, by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, reviewed
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan has achieved that rare feat, in her second novel Starling Days, of writing a convincing novel about…
Why are children so fearful about the future?
For any bosses from the Singapore education department reading this, I have a message. It comes from (I’d guess) most…
If only we could hibernate all winter
As travel writer, nature writer, memory retriever and, I would add, prose-poet of mesmerising lyricism, Horatio Clare is a celebrant…
Six wintry days in Saratoga Springs: Upstate by James Wood reviewed
Alan Querry, the central figure in James Wood’s second novel, is someone who, in his own words, doesn’t ‘think about…
Antidepressants saved me – but they made my mental health worse
Antidepressants saved my life, I am sure of that. But I am also certain they made my mental illness much…
Don’t let these figures depress you, girls
Are British teenagers suffering from an epidemic of mental illness? Yes, according to a ‘government-funded study’ which found that 24…
Close encounters on the starship Enterprise
For a show with a self-proclaimed ‘five-year mission’, Star Trek hasn’t done badly. Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Wagon train to the stars’…
David Astor: the saintly, tormented man who remade the Observer
Before embarking on this book, Jeremy Lewis was told by his friend Diana Athill that his subject, the newspaper editor…
Joan Bakewell: on socks, fridge magnets, teddy bears and such stuff
I don’t know if this counts as name-dropping, but I recently interviewed a boyhood friend of Elvis Presley’s in Tupelo,…
Charles Moore’s Notes: cheap trickery in the Economist’s assisted dying campaign
Because, it says, of its ‘liberal values and respect for human dignity’, the Economist has put out a film about…
Woody Allen: a life of jazz, laughter, depression —and a few misdemeanours
Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg), the prolific, Oscar-winning auteur, New Orleans-style jazz clarinettist, doyen of New York delicatessen society,…
Smartphones are wonderful – until they take over your life
The smart phone is a wonderful thing. We are never out of touch anymore, neither with friends nor with the…
Edward Thomas: the prolific hack (who wrote a book review every three days for 14 years) turned to poetry just in time
Edward Thomas was gloomy as Eeyore. In 1906 he complained to a friend that his writing ‘was suffering more &…
Why I’m thankful that Atos found me fit to work
Being found ‘fit for work’ changed my life for the better
The sofa that became a work of art
Last week on Front Row (Radio 4) the singer Joyce DiDonato recalled the advice she gave the new graduates of…
Radio 4 deserts the British bird. Shame on them!
A strange coincidence on Saturday night to come back from the cinema, having seen a film about a woman fighting…
Breakdowns, suicide attempts — and four great novels
Among the clever young Australians who came over here in the 1960s to find themselves and make their mark, a…
Sane New World, by Ruby Wax - a review
Ruby Wax, who is best known as a comedian, dedicates this book ‘to my mind, which at one point left…
