Books
'Silence: A Christian History', by Diarmaid MacCulloch - review
This is a specialist book for non-specialist readers — by which I mean in part that it is made highly accessible to anyone seriously interested by excellent and lively writing… Read more
'The Prince, the Princess and the Perfect Murder', by Andrew Rose - review
In April 1917 Edward, Prince of Wales, at a luncheon at the Crillon Hotel in Paris, had the misfortune to meet the very sexy and utterly loathsome Marguerite Alibert. A… Read more
'The British Dream', by David Goodhart - review
David Goodhart’s new book, The British Dream, is an important study of postwar immigration into the UK, its successes and failures. He explores the tension between growing diversity and national… Read more
'Life after Life', by Kate Atkinson - review
Das also war des Pudels Kern! Everybody thought, ‘Oh, Groundhog Day,’ but they were wrong. Not that the pest-control man couldn’t have coped with a few marmots — he’d seen… Read more
'The Age of Global Warming', by Rupert Darwall - review
We scarcely need our fifth freezing winter in a row to remind us of the probability that future generations may look back on the panic over global warming which suddenly… Read more
'Evelyn Waugh: A Biography', by Selina Hastings - review
When it comes to literature, there are two types of Prius-driving, hummus-eating, Green-party voting, lefty reactionary readers. Those who loathe Evelyn Waugh and find him to represent elitism, condescension and… Read more
'The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory', by Deborah Alun-Jones - review
The property pages of Country Life invariably feature an old rectory or two, probably graceful 18th-century, of honeyed Cotswold stone, and if you plan to move in you will need… Read more
Mark Haddon’s Swimming and flying: an extract
Some years back I volunteered to help with an experiment at the Warneford Hospital in Oxford which involved having my brain scanned while I watched a series of seemingly random… Read more
The repentant book thief of Lambeth Palace
Most of us associate ecclesiastical libraries with dusty accumulations of sermons, providing nourishment for bookworms but of no other real use. But surprising treasures — some decidedly secular — can… Read more
'Deserter: The Last Untold Story of the Second World War', by Charles Glass - review
On the morning of 31 January 1945, a private soldier in the United States army, a minor ex-con with a juvenile record for theft, called Eddie Slovik was put to… Read more
'The Undivided Past', by David Cannadine – review
David Cannadine detests generalisations and looks disapprovingly on any attempt to divide humanity into precise categories. The Undivided Past provides a resoundingly dusty answer to any historian rash enough to… Read more
'Holland House: A History of London’s Most Celebrated Salon', by Linda Kelly – review
Holland House, which was bombed in 1940, was a large, rambling Jacobean mansion off Kensington High Street. In 1800 it was still in the country, surrounded by leafy woods and… Read more
Penguin Underground Lines – review
You don’t have to live in London to be faintly obsessed by the Tube, but it probably helps. At this point I should state my bona fides: born in Great… Read more
'The City of Devi', by Manil Suri – review
Manil Suri’s novel is like a ‘masala movie’ — a Bombay mix of genres, spicy, often subtle, often corny, and distinctly addictive. It is difficult to pin down its overriding… Read more
'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia', by Mohsin Hamid – review
In the classic rags-to-riches narrative, a boy born into poverty attains respectability by dint of hard work, clean living and moral courage. Mohsin Hamid’s third novel — his eagerly awaited… Read more
'Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers: The Rare Victory of Sri Lanka’s Long War', by Paul Moorcraft – review
A strain of hawkish thought maintains that if armies were unencumbered by weak-willed politicians, pinkish concerns with human rights and above all the intrusions of the media they could rapidly… Read more
'The Birth of an Opera', by Michael Rose – review
When, more than half a century ago, I was a student, deriving much of my education from the Third Programme, I was given, between 1955 and 1971, a crash course… Read more
'Well Done God!: Selected Prose and Drama of B.S. Johnson', edited by Jonathan Coe – review
B.S. Johnson railed intemperately at life, but in his fiction at least he found a lugubrious comedy in human failings. In 1973, aged 40, he killed himself by slashing his… Read more
Latest blogs
- Same Sex Marriage Bill: how MPs voted The Spectator
- Gay marriage easily passes third reading vote in the Commons James Forsyth
- Labour claims credit for gay marriage bill Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron has caused a crisis in conservatism Miles Windsor
- Cameron has reached the tipping point Martin Bright
- Sir David Nicholson to go: but will it change the culture at the top of the NHS? Isabel Hardman
- Scottish independence: it’s still (almost) all about oil. Alex Massie
