The best children's books for Christmas
Animal stories for children are always tricky; as J.R.R. Tolkien observed in his essay on fairy stories, you can end…
The man who made it OK to talk about immigration
How Professor Paul Collier has bypassed the liberal taboo on discussing immigration
Helen Fielding has lost her touch
To understand quite how disgruntled the reviews of the latest Bridget Jones diaries have been, you have to recall quite…
Less sex please, we're British
From Bridget Jones to prime-time telly, porn culture is now mainstream
Do women want what they say they want?
What do women want? You might have thought the Wife of Bath had got this one sorted, but Daniel Bergner…
Why G.K. Chesterton shouldn’t be made a saint
G.K. Chesterton was a great journalist, not an angel
Sorry – the Vikings really were that bad
Forget that guff about peaceful farmers with an interest in travel
The Modern Peasant, by JoJo Tulloch - review
You know that something’s afoot when Lakeland says so. Lakeland is the kitchenware company which has more of a finger…
Philip Bobbitt on Machiavelli, Obama and David Cameron
Few of today’s statesmen, says Philip Bobbitt, deserve comparison with the ‘seriously ethical’ author of The Prince
Dan Brown's latest conspiracy theory - and the powerful people who believe it
The novelist is not the first to say that we’re all doomed
Travel: Ireland’s wild west
Melanie McDonagh goes in quest of the Burren, with its ancient churches, rugged landscapes and extraordinary flora
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique at 50
Melanie McDonagh on 50 years of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
Don’t watch The Hobbit
The book is perfectly formed – the film can only spoil it
Fit to Party
There’s one sure way to avoid a miserable January: get your masochism over with in early December. Are you ready to pretox?
Can you trust a Christian?
Secular prejudice is fine, but religious belief is increasingly suspect
Cake Expectations
The rebirth of afternoon tea
The vagina fad
A puerile modern obsession with the V-word
Paris en famille
The French capital is much friendlier if you’re a child, says Melanie McDonagh
The right to squeak
Having a feminine voice remains a real disadvantage
Unsinkable drama
The last hours of the Titanic were a perfect tragedy. No wonder we’re still obsessed
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…
Christmas for the ladies
In Ireland, women used to gather to celebrate the Epiphany with cakes and gossip
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…
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…
Don’t wait for One Day
The perfect soulmate is an illusion that can ruin your life
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