Ian McEwan

The best children’s books: a Spectator Christmas survey

18 December 2021 9:00 am

J.K. Rowling Poignant, funny and genuinely scary, The Hundred and One Dalmatians was one of my favourite books as a…

Emma Thompson as Fiona Maye in The Children Act

If you think you can’t have too much Ian McEwan, then you are wrong

25 August 2018 9:00 am

The Children Act is the third Ian McEwan film adaptation in 18 months (after The Child in Time and On…

Wonder woman: Saoirse Ronan is miraculous as Florence in On Chesil Beach

Whoever signed off on the ending deserves a good thrashing: On Chesil Beach reviewed

19 May 2018 9:00 am

On Chesil Beach is an adaptation of the Ian McEwen novella set in 1962 when ‘conversation about sexual difficulties was…

Pat and Richard Nixon in ENO’s 2006 production of John Adams’s Nixon in China

Whatever happened to Alice?

19 August 2017 9:00 am

In 1987, the art of opera changed decisively. John Adams’s opera Nixon in China was so unlike the usual run…

Torn between envy and contempt

5 August 2017 9:00 am

Arriving at boarding school with the wrong shoes and a teddy bear in his suitcase, the hero of Elizabeth Day’s…

Clockwise from top left: Rudyard Kipling, Hannah More, M.R. James, Elizabeth Bowen, Arthur Conan Doyle and Candia McWilliam

The best British short stories — from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith

7 November 2015 9:00 am

In this handsome two-volume anthology, Philip Hensher convincingly establishes himself as a world authority on the short story, says Ian Sansom

How ‘data’ became like ‘butter’

3 January 2015 9:00 am

Someone on Radio 4 said she had heard about the sexism of Grand Theft Auto on ‘Women’s Hour’. It is…