obsession
Mounting suspicion: The Fate of Mary Rose, by Caroline Blackwood, reviewed
Terror and distrust build in the Anderson family after a six-year-old girl is found murdered in a quiet Kent village
A romantic obsession: Precipice, by Robert Harris, reviewed
In the build-up to the Great War another drama unfolds, as the Prime Minister H.H. Asquith is seen to be distracted from politics by his infatuation with the beautiful Venetia Stanley
How ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ plays tricks with the mind
First published in 1798, Coleridge’s masterpiece, about a man obsessed with retelling his story, has obsessed readers ever since, because it never offers up closure
A haunting theme: The Echoes, by Evie Wyld, reviewed
The many ghosts in Wyld’s novel include the recent occupant of a London flat, a girl in a faded photograph, and, most disturbingly, traumatised indigenous children in Australia
A voyage of literary discovery: Clara Reads Proust, by Stéphane Carlier, reviewed
A 23-year-old hairdresser casually picks up a copy of Swann’s Way left behind by a client – only to find the novel taking over her life
The diary of a tortured man: Deceit, by Yuri Felsen, reviewed
Yuri Felsen, born in St Petersburg, was an exile in Riga, Berlin and Paris and died at Auschwitz in 1943.…
Beauty on the beach: Isolde, by Irina Odoevtseva, reviewed
France was to blame. Yes, France was most definitely to blame. He was never like this at home. So thinks…
It’s not a wave’s crest, but its translucent interior that surfers dream of
Surfing has come of age. Like rock and roll, it was once strictly for young people, edgy and alternative and…
Has Paul Theroux finally lost it?
As I ploughed through this semi-autobiographical behemoth about an author and travel writer obsessed with his siblings and mother, I…
A roomful of firearms and fantasists at the world’s biggest gun show
Amid the hunters, urban cowboys and trigger-happy heroes at the world’s biggest gun show
My new addiction: road-building
Many years ago I was encouraged to read Roger Hutchinson’s Calum’s Road. The small and quirky book made a deep…
