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Thursday 20 November 2008

Dare to dream and make your ultimate trip a reality

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests

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Slippery slopes

The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919, by Mark Thompson

New light on a dark age

Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom, by Tom Holland

Books Of The Year

A further selection of the best and worst books of 2008 , chosen by some of our regular reviewers

Love between the lines

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell,
edited by Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton

Surprising literary ventures

On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco (1886), by Anton Chekhov

Arts

Glorious gadgets

Is Christmas creeping up on you, unawares? Again? Have you found yourself, even at this late hour, facing a nil-all draw as far as presents bought, and presents asked for, is concerned? Never mind.

Winning formulas

Andy Hamilton was an exceedingly welcome panellist in the days when I did The News Quiz, so I’m biased.

Books

Recent audio books

To some of us solitude may be sitting on a park bench amidst a bustling city.

A scandalous woman

Lady Worsley’s Whim, by Hallie Rubenhold

Style & Travel

Spain’s secret kingdoms

Few tourists see the buildings, birds and flowers of Leon and Burgos, says Simon Courtauld

Climb every mountain

Jeremy Clarke tries the high life at the Carlton hotel, St Moritz

Thank goodness we can have a run on the pound when we need one

Martin Vander Weyer looks ahead to next week’s Pre-Budget Report and reflects on George Osborne’s contentious remarks about the devaluation of sterling. It looks like Gordon Brown is getting away with his borrowing binge — leaving the Tories isolated

Martin Vander Weyer

I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it

The movie W. did not provide the crude anti-Bush agitprop that the reviewers craved, says Rod Liddle. This was precisely its strength: we need to get inside the minds even of those we most deplore

Rod Liddle

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