Graham Greene
The stark horror of Barbara Comyns’s fiction was all too autobiographical
Comyns’s fans have long enjoyed the novels’ macabre details and black humour. Now Avril Horner reveals their disturbing sources
Adventures in Greeneland
In skilfully told stories involving luck and changes of fortune, Osborne suggests that it’s not the hand you’re dealt that matters, but how you play it
The Index of Prohibited Books makes a fine reading list
In a classic paradox of bureaucracy, the Index of Forbidden Books only really hit its stride when its original task…
The novels that became instant classics
In the world of books, a modern classic is an altogether more slippery thing than a classic: it must walk…
From Middlemarch to Mickey Mouse: a short history of The Spectator’s books and arts pages
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
How low can the BBC go?
Last weekend’s papers claimed that the government desires a ‘massively pruned back’ BBC. Former Conservative cabinet minister Damian Green and…
Franco’s exhumation could help decide the Spanish election
I was no sooner in Madrid than General Franco was exhumed from his mausoleum not far from El Escorial. An…
Booze, cigarettes and Auberon Waugh: Remembering The Spectator’s 1970s revival
‘The Spectator, having quite recently been a very bad magazine, is at present a very good one.’ Those gratifying words…
A remote island community is disrupted by the arrival of a troubled teenager
Benjamin Wood’s first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was published in 2012, picked up good reviews, was shortlisted for the Costa…
Michael Arditti is the Graham Greene of our time
Duncan Neville is an unlikely hero for a novel. Approaching 50, divorced and the butt of his teenage son Jamie’s…
My addiction to literary pilgrimage is akin to masturbation
The hotel and its bright tan prayer rug of a beach were one. In the early morning the distant image…
The best children’s books of 2014
If it’s all right with you, I’d like to launch a campaign please. Right here. You may be wanting me…
Ten years and an earthquake: the changing face of Haiti
This summer, I returned to Haiti for the first time in ten years. I was itching to see how the…
Was Graham Greene right about Shirley Temple?
Shirley Temple, who died last week at the age of 85, was the most successful child film star in history.…
