Diary
Life & Letters
Sad, but for the most part the newly published edition of Orwell’s Diaries is a bore. Not altogether, of course, but much of what is interesting — some of the… Read more
Tales out of school
The Old Boys’ Network, by John Rae At Westminster School, under the shadow of Big Ben and at the very centre of national life, 600 of the brightest, quirkiest and… Read more
Member of the In and Out
Most MPs who start writing diaries do so in order to prove to themselves how central they are to the political process. But by the time the diaries come to… Read more
Heroes and villains
This book falls into two distinct parts. The first is the author’s account of his own life until he left Oxford in disgrace. John Joll- iffe, the son of Lord… Read more
Time out in Tuscany
In the spring of 2006, Rachel Cusk and her husband decided to take their two small daughters out of school and spend three months, a season, exploring Italy. She felt… Read more
Perfectly unreliable
Memoirs? No one writes them any more. If you wish to distinguish yourself from the sweaty masses, you are far better off publishing a diary, or notebook, call it what… Read more
Behind the fighting lines
M. R. D. Foot confesses that he has always endeavoured to follow Whistler’s counsel, ‘Not a day without a line’. His written output is impressive and his judgments severe on… Read more
The misery of an intellectual
Reborn: Susan Sontag, Early Diaries, 1947-1964, edited by David Rieff Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir, by David Rieff Susan Sontag, who died in 2004, was one… Read more
The spice of danger
From the Front Line: Family Letters & Diaries, 1900 to the Falklands & Afghanistan, by Hew Pike ‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier,’ reckoned… Read more
Latest blogs
- Can any government really expect to carry out ambitious reform? Isabel Hardman
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Drummer Lee Rigby Douglas Murray
- Eight Golden Rules for Tragedy Tweeting Freddy Gray
- Government behaving badly over ‘quietly aborted’ lobbying reform Iain Anderson
- Vice is vanishing from Britain Leo McKinstry
- Edmund Burke and post-modern conservatism David Blackburn
