To anyone who enjoyed Fernand Braudel’s masterly work on the Mediterranean or Neal Ascher- son’s wonderful Black Sea, the idea of a book on the Baltic is an appealing one. It is Europe’s other great inland sea, fed by the snows of Scandinavia and rivers such as the Elbe, the Vistula, the Niemen and the
In 1991, A.S. Byatt wrote an introduction to a reissue of her first novel, The Shadow of the Sun (1964), in which she recalls that she had: the eternal first novelist’s problem … I didn’t want to write a ‘me-novel’ [but] I didn’t know anything — about life, at least. Highly autobiographical first novels are
In the first century bc, the wrestler Nicophon of Miletus was said to have a physique which would have made Zeus himself tremble. He literally outstripped his rivals at the Olympic Games. Nicophon’s mere name, Victory Voice, announced a champion, just as that of Schwarzenegger did in the Mr Universe — and, more recently, in
This superb novel takes place in the remote settlement of Yazyk, at the end of a 100-mile spur off the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is 1919. Most of the inhabitants belong to a bizarre Christian sect who desire no part in the political upheavals further west. But events have intruded upon them in the form of
There have been many books over the years with titles that approximate to Why I Am Still a Catholic. In the Fifties a dream team would have included, I suppose, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene with Alec Guinness, received into the Church in 1956, as a promising newcomer. In 1955 my mother Elizabeth Pakenham, later
Many years ago, in one of those precious moments of seren- dipity, I came across a novel called Ali and Nino, set in the Azerbaijani city of Baku. This seductive, life-enhancing story tells of a love affair between a Muslim and a Christian at the city’s pivotal moment, just as the oil begins to flow
Spectator readers have known of Dr Dalrymple for many years through his regular column in this magazine. Every week we muddled our way through, unreflectively finding life all right and other people not so bad. Then, on Fridays we took Dr Dalrymple’s little magic pill and suddenly saw that we were knee-high in a rising
Patrick Caulfield’s paintings look specific while giving us tantalisingly little to go on. Where are we? Seemingly, a spotlight moves, the disc of dislocated brightness slithering over tablecloth, tankard, swirly-plastered wall and simulated half-timber. Could this be a Vermeer-themed hostelry for the discriminating guest? Details punctuate the ambience. Take a pew, why don’t we, and
More than any other literary form, perhaps, the thriller is at the mercy of history — especially that branch of the genre that deals with the rise and fall of empires, the clash of ideologies and the dirty secrets of nations. In the past, most thriller writers, from Buchan to Fleming and beyond, dealt with
The life and death of Nelson grip the imagination, not just because of the bicentenary of Trafalgar but because more is known about him than any other major figure in British history. He was a tireless correspondent, writing for hours with his left hand letters that would be kept in their hundreds because he was
From: ChristopherBland@bt.comTo: Lit Ed@spectator.co.ukSubject: Book Review Dear Mark, Delighted to review Martin’s book; I seem to remember meeting him with Rupert, Conrad and Bill at the Allen and Co. Sun Valley media bash two years ago. He’s clearly put his learning about my rebranding achievements at BBC and BT into practice at a-b global. Now
After 20 years of hard labour Professor Ekirch has produced an absorbing social history of nighttime in pre-industrial society from the Balkans to the British colonies of North America. His vast accumulation of quotations from diverse sources — he has employed ‘a legion of translators’ — threatens, at times, to overwhelm the reader, but they
Paul Theroux’s new novel finds Slade Steadman, the 50-year-old author of a celebrated travel book, on the trail to darkest Ecuador in the company of some deeply unpleasant American tourists and his disillusioned doctor girlfriend Ava. The object of his quest is a rare hallucinogen, shyly administered by the local shaman, with which our man
Shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution, I found myself in a girls’ dormitory of Beijing university. It was a small drab room of eight wooden bunks. The students wore shapeless Mao jackets over hand-knitted jerseys and their hair in plaits. It was very cold. I had asked about their love life. The girls
Ever since Dixon’s pie-eyed lecture on Merrie England in Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim there’s been a hunger for more exposures of the pretentious absurdities and backbiting jealousies of academia. Here’s another from a distinguished professor of English at London University who’s presumably seen a great deal of it. Perhaps it’s because of this that David
This is the sort of book we can expect to see a great deal more of in the future. After Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point — a study of the way products or ideas move from niche positions to mass markets — economists and journalists have been racking their brains to come up with usefully
Kathleen Jamie is a poet. This might be described as her occasional book, in the sense of being a record of what she saw, smelt, heard or felt during these various experiences and expeditions. Most are concerned, loosely, with natural history —ospreys, wild salmon, corncrakes, whales; all of them pertain to Scotland (of which she
Who killed Lord Haw-Haw? It was I, said Hartley Shawcross. I was the attorney general who led his prosecution personally under the Treason Act, even though my constitutional expert advised me that we did not have a case in law, and one of my predecessors in office had confessed himself ‘incredulous’ at its being brought
HERMIT WANTEDFree meals and accommodation.Situated on grand estate.Would suit the quiet type. When Giles and Ginny married ‘it was like a great clanging-together of bank vaults that rang out across the land’. Now Ginny demanded a savage. She had discovered an empty cave in the woods, and it needed to be occupied. The applicant to
This is an ideal John Murray book, dealing with historic personalities, with a narrative reinforced by family papers and an understanding deepened by family connection. Robert Lloyd George, the author, is the great-grandson of David Lloyd George, the prime minister. I hope it will be a best- seller, and can imagine it being un- wrapped,