Fiction
Jacqueline Wilson: 'The first book that made me cry'
Rumer Godden’s An Episode of Sparrows, first published in 1955, focuses on the roaming children — the ‘sparrows’ — of a shabby street in bomb-torn London. When ten-year-old Lovejoy Mason finds a packet of cornflower seeds and decides to create an ‘Italian’ garden hidden in a rubble-strewn churchyard, the consequences are life-changing for all who become involved. Below is the foreword to a recent reissue of the novel (Virago Modern Classics, £7.99, Spectator Bookshop, £7.49).
From frankness to obsession - the novels of Francis King
Paul Binding reassesses the novels of Francis King, who died last year
William S. Burroughs was a writer – not a painter, prophet, philosopher
William S. Burroughs lived his life in the grand transgressive tradition of Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde and, like all…
When No Man's Land is home
Countless writers and film-makers this year will be trying their hand at forcing us to wake up and smell the…
By the book: The NSA is behaving like a villain in a 1950s novel
The continuing drip-feed of stories about governments and friendly-seeming internet giants sifting through our data has left some citizens feeling…
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…
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…
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…
Rebus is good, but not as sharp as he once was
Cig 1 Auld Reekie . . . Edinburgh . . . brewers’ town, stinking of beer, whisky, tweeness, gentility, hypocrisy,…
The thrill of the (postmodern neo-Victorian) chase
Charles Palliser’s debut novel The Quincunx appeared as far back as 1989. Lavish and labyrinthine, this shifted nigh on a…
Village life can be gripping
Black Sheep opens biblically, with a mining village named Mount of Zeal, which is ‘built in a bowl like an…
The imitable Jeeves
For as long as I can remember — I take neither pleasure nor pride in the admission — I have…
Carlos Acosta, the great dancer, should be a full-time novelist
Carlos Acosta, the greatest dancer of his generation, grew up in Havana as the youngest of 11 black children. Money…
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…
What a coincidence
If you are going to read a novel that plays with literary conventions you want it written with aplomb. In…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Expo 58, by Jonathan Coe - review
In 1958 a vast international trade fair was held just outside Brussels. As well as being a showcase for industry,…
The Windsor Faction, by D.J. Taylor - review
In both his novels and non-fiction, D. J. Taylor has long been fascinated by the period between the wars. Now…
Multiples, edited by Adam Thirlwell - review
There is a hoary Cold War joke about a newly invented translating machine. On a test run, the CIA scientists…
Mr Loverman, by Bernardine Evaristo - review
In 1998, the Jamaican singer Bounty Killer released a single, ‘Can’t Believe Mi Eyes’, which expressed incredulity that men should…
