John Brockman, the New York literary agent and science writer, had an artist friend, James Byars, who had a grand idea. It was ‘to gather the 100 most brilliant minds in the world together in a room, lock them in and have them ask each other the questions they were asking themselves’. The result, he
The British, publishers and booksellers regularly tell us, have an antipathy to the short story; they respond unfavourably to even a well-known writer coming up with a collection, and for an emergent one to devote creative energy principally to the medium would be regarded as literary suicide. And this despite determined efforts by certain key
One of Sir Mark Thatcher’s friends once told him he was ‘born guilty’. Many, including the two authors of this book, would contend that he has done his best to live up to his billing. Apparently, in moments of persecution, he has taken to quoting this observation about himself in the most rueful of tones.
‘The most intellectual British poet of the 19th century’ is Anthony Kenny’s judgment of Arthur Hugh Clough — a tribute which implies the absence of Tennysonian musi- cality in his verse as well as a prescient understanding of contemporary philosophical and scientific issues that far exceeds Browning’s or Arnold’s. Kenny’s study of this still underrated
In bad light, after some confusion, the bails were ceremonially removed by the umpires late in the evening of 12 September 2005, to signify that the game was ended, was a draw and that England had won the Ashes. Less than three weeks later, a handsome, well-written account of that exhausting 25-day battle, Ashes Victory,
In the reviewer’s childhood, Scott was a national hero, almost as revered as Nelson. Revisionists did what they could in the 1960s and 1970s to cut him down to size; generations have been brought up to despise him. David Crane’s new life seeks to restore the balance, to show the man as he was and
Commander Chipps Selby Bennett was a traditional officer and a gentleman; a Dorset dandy with a monocle, tartan trews and size 12 shoes. He’s a man whose life experience encompasses the navy, hunting and the Conservative party. His autobiography, Seahorse! Between the Sea and the Saddle, reflects with characteristic eloquence his surprisingly wide-ranging life, and
In the late 1990s it began to look as if the media were gunning for millionaire Tories in alphabetical order. First Jonathan Aitken, a joint target of Granada and the Guardian. Then Jeffrey Archer, jailed after a sting operation by the News of the World. Next in line seemed to be the mysterious Michael Ashcroft,
History and fiction have their differences. The most obvious and the most important is that scrupulous historians hesitate to say anything for which they cannot provide some form of documentary evidence. But history and fiction are also more alike than is usually acknowledged. Both historians and novelists seek to show how the world operates (or
A few days after Baghdad fell to American soldiers, CNN aired footage of a harassed marine wrestling to contain an unruly mob, and yelling, ‘We’re here for your fucking freedom! Now back up!’ The occupation was already in trouble. Looters had grabbed their freedom with greedy hands, ransacking almost every state building left unbombed, stripping
The Exploits of Mr Saucy Squirrel (1976) by Woodrow Wyatt LORD WYATT of Weeford, Chairman of the Tote, the ‘Voice of Reason’, and the only member of the British peerage whose cigars could remain alight underwater, says in the preface to this tale, ‘Mr Saucy Squirrel has an alert and enquiring mind. That is how
