Books

Lead book review

More juicy gossip from Kenneth ‘Climbing’ Rose

When this second volume of diaries begins in 1979, Kenneth Rose is 54 and well established as the author of the Sunday Telegraph social column ‘Albany at Large’. The first volume, published last year, was reckoned by many to be a disappointmaent on account of Rose’s snobbery. This one is better. By now Rose has

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Who knew that chemistry could be so entertaining?

Here’s how the element antimony got its name. Once upon a time (according to the 17th-century apothecary Pierre Pomet), a German monk (moine in French) noticed its purgative effects in animals. Fancying himself as a physician, he fed it to his own Fraternity… but his Experiment succeeded so ill that every one who took of

The good sex award goes to Sarah Hall: Sudden Traveller reviewed

Sarah Hall should probably stop publishing short stories for a while to give other writers a chance. If she’s not the best short story writer in Britain, then — but why even finish that sentence? Her novels are good, but it’s in the short form that she excels, with strange, unsettling tales that have made

Who will take on the behemoths of Big Tech?

With Britain having gone through its third general election in four years, the halcyon days of Cleggmania in the 2010 campaign seem like an impossibly innocent time. Particularly since Sir Nick Clegg, once the shining, soft-haired hope of sensible centrists, now works as a PR man for Facebook. His job is to explain to the