Hemingway
How the myth of Paris liberating itself was born
When De Gaulle persuaded Eisenhower to allow the French 2nd armoured division to lead a diversion into the city on 25 August 1944, it was his own political future he was thinking of
Joan Didion deserves better
The great American writer is ill-served by this new biography – but luckily we still have her own writing to tell us who she truly was
Mario Reading reviews four first-rate first novels
It has become something of a truism among writers’ groups and in articles offering advice on how best to secure…
‘Doorways to the unknown’: Clive James’s Latest Readings
In the preface to his great collection of essays The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden claimed: ‘I prefer a critic’s notebooks…
The road to Lolita: why Nabokov’s literary talent finally blossomed in America
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov’s nostalgic memoir, reflects on his life from the age of three to 41, taking us from…
Old age is not for sissies
The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The…
The only things modern Greece inherited from the Ancients are jealousy and envy
On board the Weatherbird off the Peloponnese The old girl groans and creaks as we tack time and again, the…
