Book Reviews

1.) Clive James has returned to TV criticism. He was poached out of retirement by the Telegraph who proudly billed their latest catch as the ‘world’s greatest TV critic’. It sees him resume where his groundbreaking Observer column, written between 1972-82, left off. Widely cited as turning TV criticism into serious art, James collected his weekly musings into three volumes of TV criticism: Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket and Glued to the Box. A compendium volume, On Television, was published in 1990. All are available here.   2.) James is a man of many genres. He has published verse (most recently Opal Sunset: Selected Poems 1958-2008), four novels, five

One of the most irritating things about the launch of a Jeffrey Archer book is the high pitched whine of indignation and scorn from that small, bitchy and endangered species, the literary community. Well, after God knows how many years and the sale of 350 million books, they have been remarkably reserved about his latest, Only Time Will Tell. In fact, the old rascal has had some favourable reviews from some unexpected sources, The Guardian and The Independent. And well deserved too. No doubt they will be punished by having to read every Booker prize winner’s offerings for the last 20 years. How cruel is that? This is a cracker

Mark Mason has written the Bookend column in the latest issue of The Spectator. Here it is for readers of this blog. It is 1979. You are a 15-year-old boy starring in a hit US television show. You’ve seen the crowds of screaming girls outside the gates as you arrive for work, and are therefore very excited to have received your first fan letter. You open it eagerly and begin to read: ‘Dear Mr Rob Lowe, You are a great actor. Can you please send me an autographed photo of yourself? If possible in a bathing suit or in your underwear. Sincerely, Michael LeBron. #4142214 Pelican Bay Prison.’ Anyone who

The hardback edition of D.R. Thorpe’s Supermac is 626 pages in length (not including endnotes and index), 24cm x 16cm x 6cm in girth, and weighs in at more than one kilogram – on first appearances, not a book for a beach holiday. Or so I thought, because despite the corporeal hardships of reading this on a sunbed in mercury-popping heat, I was transfixed. And now I have the forearms to prove it. Thorpe gravitates between dextrous prose and a judicial exposition of evidence, such as when taking the reader through the controversial Cossacks repatriation episode, or the quandary of royal prerogative during the handover to Lord Home. He not

The Hay Festival has ended, but so much of this enormous festival went largely unreported. Here’s the final dispatch from George Binning: Richard E Grant’s conversation with Peter Godwin about Mugabe’s regime and Godwin’s latest book, The Fear, gave us a nuanced insight into African politics that could not have been written by the Western press. Godwin, who fought against Mugabe in the civil war, started by describing the dichotomy of being a white African, especially when lecturing to audiences of predominantly black American students who had never been to Africa themselves, but still identified with the continent. He argued that Mugabe had followed a consistently retributive agenda, hidden behind

The Hay Festival has ended, but reports from this enormous festival do not. Here’s another dispatch from George Binning: In 1977, having started a craze for second hand book shops and festivals in Hay on Wye, Richard Booth crowned himself King of Hay. He also appointed a chamber of hereditary peers in 2000 (a nice little earner), but in spite of his lifelong contribution to Hay’s cultural landscape, a large number of the locals think he is a wally. In fact one man tells me that there was a sort of revolution a few years ago where an angry mob ritually beheaded an effigy of Booth. He recently sold Hay

Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, disabuses readers of the Guardian of their misconceptions about Virginia Woolf. ‘Virginia Woolf was great fun at parties. I want to tell you that up front, because Woolf, who died 70 years ago this year, is so often portrayed as the Dark Lady of English letters, all glowery and sad, looking balefully on from a crepuscular corner of literary history with a stone lodged in her pocket. She did, of course, have her darker interludes. More on that in a moment. But first I’d like to announce, to anyone who might not know, that she, when not sunk in her periodic depressions, was the

As night fell I was joined by my friend Sarah, a researcher for documentary maker Nick Broomfield. We attended a talk by William Cohen, an investigative journalist who told us that Goldman Sachs really is the evil corporation that everyone says it is, but before long we succumbed to the dark side. That is to say, we venture into How The Light Gets In, a rival festival organised by the Independent. The musical entertainment was Disraeli and the Small Gods, a very competent Ska outfit headed by an intensely annoying Bristolian wide boy, who I suspect may be posher than he would like to let on, followed by a cheesy