Melanie McDonagh 
Dan Brown's latest conspiracy theory - and the powerful people who believe it
You know Inferno, the new Dan Brown novel, the one that’s had such fabulously bad reviews? Well, it’s not really about Dante’s Inferno at all. What it’s really about — spoiler… Read more
Travel: Ireland’s wild west
The problem with writing about the Burren is that there’s no consensus about where it is. Different people have different ideas. On my first trip there, I plaintively asked a… Read more
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique at 50
It’s the 50th anniversary this year of the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. According to the quote on the cover of my Penguin edition, ‘Feminism … began with… Read more
Don’t watch The Hobbit
Once, I met Priscilla Tolkien, the daughter of J.R.R. Tolkien. It was at the Oxford Catholic chaplaincy, and she was giving a talk about her father. She was charming, something… Read more
Can you trust a Christian?
For some time we have known about the tension between George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith over welfare reform. The Chancellor wanted more welfare cuts, and the Work and Pensions… Read more
The vagina fad
In the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, there’s a picture that, last time I looked, was curtained off. A couple of Japanese girls came out from behind the curtain, stuffing their… Read more
Paris en famille
Paris for lovers, tick. Paris for gastronomes, tick. Paris for the fashion-conscious, obviously. But children? Funnily enough, I find it one of the most child-friendly cities we go to. The… Read more
The right to squeak
It’s probably tendentious to say that the feminine voice is a feminist issue, but let me say it anyway. I have, I may say, a voice that spans the vocal… Read more
Unsinkable drama
The last hours of the Titanic were a perfect tragedy. No wonder we’re still obsessed What with the centenary coming up next month, it was hard to imagine anything that… Read more
A real-life whodunnit
The Saville Report into the events of Bloody Sunday is ten volumes or 5,000 pages long and was five years in the writing. The inquiry lasted 12 years, including those… Read more
Christmas for the ladies
At this time of year you’ve probably had it with festive planners, Christmas countdowns and those magazine features about what presents to buy — as if picking presents, rather than… Read more
Cookery Books: Back to classics
The truth is, we could probably all get by with three or four cookbooks; half a dozen at most, which makes my own collection of dozens seem a bit OTT.… Read more
The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses by Paul Koudounaris
In one Capuchin monastery in Sicily, the so-called Palermo Catacombs, locals used to buy a niche where their mummified corpse would one day stand erect, clothed and on display to… Read more
Don’t wait for One Day
The correct response to the film One Day is, apparently, to cry your eyes out. Me, I couldn’t squeeze a single tear; in fact the sentiment I could barely suppress… Read more
The secret of self-help
This being summer, many of us are going to spend a lot of time in airports. So we may as well make the most of it. During half an hour… Read more
What women want
The Tories are desperate to regain the female vote – but they have a very patronising idea of how to do it You’d never think it to look at them,… Read more
Vastly entertaining
It may not be quite true that the next best thing to eating good food is reading about it, but undeniably food writing has its considerable pleasures. You’ve got it… Read more
Bookends: The last laugh
In July, the world’s most famous restaurant, elBulli, closes, to reopen in 2014 as a ‘creative centre’. Rough luck on the million-odd people who try for one of 8,000 reservations… Read more
Adultery rewarded
Funny, isn’t it, how the unthinkable becomes the thinkable, then the possible, then the acceptable and finally the inevitable? You can see the process in motion when it comes to… Read more
Smoke Alarm
Kate Moss’s return to the catwalk, for Marc Jacobs/Louis Vuitton, was intended to be a bit edgy. Black leather, mini-hotpants, dominatrix boots, mask by way of hairband. So far so… Read more
Latest blogs
- Lee Rigby named as victim of Woolwich attack Sebastian Payne
- The friendless Help-to-Buy scheme Isabel Hardman
- Nothing to do with Islam? Douglas Murray
- Why it’s not the 1990s all over again for the Tories James Forsyth
- You’re going to lose. It is only you against many. Alex Massie
- PM avoids knee-jerk response to Woolwich attack Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron’s statement on the Woolwich attack The Spectator
