Family
What Michael Gove should know about going to school in Singapore
I like to tease my friend Wei about being a tiger mother. She once told me of an incident where her daughter Shu was making an artwork for a friend… Read more
It's time to admit it: the NHS is unable to look after our elderly
I decided to become a hospital visitor last year, after being a patient and finding myself in something more like a factory than an old-fashioned ward. A terror of infection… Read more
How can I write like that about my family? Easy. My wife isn’t reading
People often ask how I get away with writing about my wife so often. Doesn’t Caroline mind being cast as the matronly foil to my errant schoolboy? I’d love to… Read more
Why should our children be more like the French?
I’ve no particular beef with the French, gruesomely tortured beef as it would no doubt be, but I’m a little tired of being told we ought to follow their example… Read more
My battle with Britain's mean, ineffective immigration system
When I first came to this country nearly a decade ago, Britain wanted immigrants like me. Back then you could get a visa just for being creative. It was called… Read more
What is this word?
‘What are you writing?’ I asked my nine-year-old daughter as she sat at the kitchen table doing her homework. ‘A recount,’ she said. ‘What’s a recount?’ She looked at me… Read more
'Daphne du Maurier and Her Sisters: The Hidden Lives of Piffy, Bird and Bing', by Jane Dunn - review
Jane Dunn is something of a specialist on sisterhood. She has — we learn from the dedication — five sisters of her own; she has already written a book about… Read more
The daily I miss every day
Not a day passes in which I don’t regret firing Irena. She was my ‘daily’ from 1991 to 2004. I don’t think I could have asked for anyone better qualified.… Read more
Family favourites
Because Deborah Devonshire’s journalism has nearly always made me laugh, and because she seems like one of the jollier aunts in P. G. Wodehouse — an Aunt Dahlia, not an… Read more
Beating his demons
Some of us are still startled that Wallace Stevens was 44 when he published Harmonium. So what to make of the fact that Roald Dahl was past the midpoint of… Read more
Kin, but less than kind
About 100 years ago two brothers settled in the same small English town and raised 12 children. Charles Greene was a scholar, destined for the Bar, who blundered into schoolmastering… Read more
Why, oh why?
In my many years as a judge for the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography, I have been constantly surprised by the high proportion of books that deal with the… Read more
Mother issues
The Norwegian, Per Petterson, was not well known until his 2003 novel, Out Stealing Horses, became a surprise international bestseller. It deserved the many prizes it garnered: it is a… Read more
Secrets and silences
Charlotte Moore’s family have lived at Hancox on the Sussex Weald for well over a century. Charlotte Moore’s family have lived at Hancox on the Sussex Weald for well over… Read more
Small but perfectly formed
Some years ago, Edmund de Waal inherited a remarkable collection of 264 netsuke from his great-uncle Iggie, whom he had got to know 20 years previously while studying pottery and… Read more
The pride of the Sackvilles
Knole is a country house the size of a small village in the Kent countryside. For the past 400 years it has been inhabited by 13 generations of a single… Read more
The loss of innocents
Here are two novels about that most harrowing and haunting of subjects — children who go missing. Here are two novels about that most harrowing and haunting of subjects —… Read more
The loneliness of the long distance salesman
If only E. M. Forster hadn’t beaten him to it by exactly a century, Jonathan Coe could have coined the enigmatic phrase ‘only connect’ in this novel. If only E.… Read more
Lurking beneath the surface
One’s past life is, usually, comfortably past. One’s past life is, usually, comfortably past. Susan Morrow’s first husband, Edward, is so firmly in her past that his second wife even… Read more
The woman behind the god
The emperor Augustus was the original god/father. Julius Caesar was often referred to as ‘the divine Julius’, but his nephew (and adopted son) was the first Roman to have temples… Read more
Latest blogs
- The words ‘terrorist attack’ only dignify the barbarism Rod Liddle
- The View from 22 — Osborne’s property bubble, the ongoing Tory wars and Google’s taxing issue Sebastian Payne
- Woolwich eyewitness: one of the men fired a gun, but it backfired and he lost his finger Fraser Nelson
- Kindling by the pool – the changing face of holiday reading Mark Mason
- Woolwich attack: the aftermath James Forsyth
- ‘Not in our name’ – British Muslims denounce the Woolwich attack on Twitter Fraser Nelson
- ‘Soldier beheaded’ in south London: the Islamists repeatedly said they would do such things Douglas Murray
