Christmas

The Great War was an obscene and futile conflict laying waste a generation and toppling emperors. Yet here are two books that situate the horrors of trench warfare within a much larger perspective. One argues that the war had a forgotten ‘human face’. The other that it might all have had a very different outcome. Henry James described  the 1914 plunge of civilisation into blood and darkness as ‘too tragic for any words’ — and about tragedy there is always some air of inevitability, of sailing Titanic-like towards a foredoomed catastrophe. This air of unstoppable fatality has solidified over the intervening century. During the famous 1914 Christmas truce the Tommies

Find out which books PD James, Sam Leith, Susan Hill, Mark Amory, Barry Humphries and many more hate, then tell us about yours in the comments section. Craig Brown Which classic work do you think this comes from? ‘Her teeth were white in her brown face and her skin and her eyes were the same golden tawny brown. She had high cheek-bones, merry eyes and a straight mouth with full lips. Her hair was the golden brown of a grain field that has been burned dark in the sun but it was cut short all over her head so that it was but little longer than the fur on a

The word ‘turboparalysis’, coined by Michael Lind (who has a brilliant piece on the subject in the Spectator Christmas double issue), is paradoxical, even illogical. And yet it is clear, perfect for our times. Lind defines his term as: ‘a prolonged condition of furious motion without movement in any particular direction, a situation in which the engine roars and the wheels spin but the vehicle refuses to move.’ Turboparalysis is a new word; but its sense is familiar. We are often warned that we ‘risk repeating the mistakes of the 1930s’. Comparison between eras is always awkward. Try to compare, for instance, unemployment in Britain during the Great Depression and the Great Recession

If you’re still struggling to find a present for the inscrutable toddlers and children in your life, fear not for behold we bring you good tidings of great joy: Juliet Townsend’s annual selection of the best children’s books on the market, published in the Spectator a few weeks back.  My 20-month-old granddaughter totters into the room. Her eyes are shining with the fervour of St Bernadette. She has caught a glimpse of the divine. Two small stuffed pigs are clasped in her arms. Clearly she has been in heaven. Actually she has just returned from a visit to Peppa Pig World, the most exciting experience of her short life. Anyone

In the upper outer corridor of the Summer Palace, with its views of the palm fringed courtyard below, the young man was waiting with his gun. It was a no frills 7.65 Ruby automatic pistol, one of thousands a Spanish small arms manufacturer had supplied the French Army during the First World. Some of the offices along the narrow corridor were already deserted for the holiday. Nonetheless he had been assured that, however long his Christmas Eve lunch, the admiral would be back because he would want to read his latest telegrams. At about 3.30pm he heard footsteps, the murmur of voices then, rather surprisingly perhaps, laughter. The assassination of

The words ‘Saville’ and ‘Inquiry’ have taken on a somewhat different meaning in recent weeks. But this is just to tell interested readers that my book on the original Saville Inquiry, Bloody Sunday: Truths, Lies and the Saville Inquiry is out now in paperback. If you can still find a bookshop then you might find it there. Otherwise it is of course available on Amazon etc. Priced at £12.99, it includes updated material on the recently-announced police investigation. The book has been described by the Spectator magazine, no less, as ‘a real-life whodunit’, by the New Statesman as ‘compelling’, by the Literary Review as ‘indispensable’, by the Irish Independent as