Memoir
Am I a brave cult survivor, too?
When I was 21, I lived with a cult for a year. It was a commune really, a tight-knit group…
The brave thing now: don’t write about your death
In the social media age, breaking ‘the last taboo’ is de rigueur
How could anyone enjoy Cédric Villani’s ‘Birth of a Theorem’? I think I’ve worked it out
I’ve got a mathematical problem. Birth of a Theorem is by one of the great geniuses of today, a cosmopolitan,…
Mecca: from shrine to shopping mall
The Saudis, official custodians of Islam’s holiest place, have bulldozed its historical sites, perverted its religion and turned Mecca into one vast shopping mall, says Justin Marozzi
Five of the best celebrity biographies of 2014
Cilla Black has become a strange creature during her 50 years in showbiz. When her husband Bobby was in hospital…
The unbearable vanity of Kevin Pietersen
Pietersen’s self-indulgent tales of woe lack credibility
When Geoff Boycott was a DJ in a Sydney nightclub
Sport isn’t about putting a ball into a net or over a bar or into a hole. It’s about the…
‘Papa told us everything’: Winston Churchill and the remarkable Mary Soames
Memories of Mary Soames, Churchill’s remarkable daughter
Read this book and you’ll see why our meadows are so precious
This book is a portrait of one man’s meadow. Our now almost vanished meadowland, with its tapestry of wildflowers, abundant…
'Where are the happy fictional spinsters?'
This book arose from an argument. Lifelong bookworm Samantha Ellis and her best friend had gone to Brontë country and…
What would Auden have deemed evil in our time? European jingoism
‘Goodbye to the Mezzogiorno’ was the first Auden poem that Alexander McCall Smith read in his youth. He discovered it…
'If I can barely speak, then I shall surely sing'
A few weeks ago, I was wandering with a friend around West London when our conversation turned to the reliable…
How to get old without getting boring
When one notices the first symptoms of senile dementia (forgetting names, trying to remember the purpose of moving from one…
Breakfast with Lucian, by Geordie Greig - review
According to the medical historian Professor Sonu Shamdasani, Sigmund Freud was not the best, nor actually the most interesting, psychoanalyst…
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, by Anya von Bremzen - review
The early 1990s in Russia were hungry years. At the time, I was a student, too idle to barter and…
Move Along, Please, by Mark Mason - review
Mrs Thatcher was widely believed to have said that ‘any man over the age of 26 who finds himself on…
The World According to Karl, edited by Jean-Christophe Napias - review
Every fashion era has its monster and in ours it’s Karl Lagerfeld, a man who has so emptied himself on…
The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor - review
Sound the trumpets. Let rip the Byzantine chorus of clattering bells and gongs, the thunder of cannons, drums and flashing…
A Rogues’ Gallery, by Peter Lewis - review
Like Mel Brooks’s character the Two Thousand-Year-Old Man, Peter Lewis has met everyone of consequence. Though he doesn’t mention being…
Bitter Experience Has Taught Me, by Nicholas Lezard - review
What, really, is a literary education for? What’s the point of it? How, precisely, does it help when you’re another…
A Corner of Paradise, by Brian Thompson - review
Author has late-blossoming romance with authoress, both divorcees, and they live together in a cramped house in Harrogate full of…
A Stone in the Shade, by Violet Powell - review
Evelyn Waugh once recalled the anguish with which he greeted Edith Sitwell’s announcement that ‘Mr Waugh, you may call me…
Death by Dior, by Terry Cooper - review
This book may sound like it’s going to be about high fashion, but it’s actually about Nazism, satanism, incest and…
Horace and Me, by Harry Eyres - review
After Zorba the Greek, here comes Horace the Roman. The peasant Zorba, you’ll remember from the film, releases uptight, genteel…
