The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
It must be said that Patrick Lichfield — the outer man — wore his ego proudly and loudly on his sleeve. It must be said that Patrick Lichfield — the outer man — wore his ego proudly and loudly on his sleeve. And with his aristocratic yet trendy good looks, his Harrovian education, the brigade
Mark Kermode is not happy. And his discontent is a joy to witness. The centrepiece of his new book about Hollywood blockbusters is a brutally hilarious account of his attempt to see The Life and Death of Charlie St Cloud with his teenage daughter. First he books two tickets online. At the multiplex, the machine
The British were in Burma for more than 120 years, but were never sure what to do with it. They completed their conquest in 1885, annexing Upper Burma and abolishing the ancient, semi-divine monarchy, apparently on the whim of Randolph Churchill. This was contrary to the British imperial tradition of indirect rule, and brought about
For five months of the year Philip Connors (once an editor at the Wall Street Journal) has a fascinating job: he is a firewatcher in the vast Gila National Forest in New Mexico, USA. He lives in a hut five miles off any road and, from a high tower, watches for tell-tale plumes of smoke
Elaine Sciolino was advised to find herself a French lover for research purposes; as far as it’s possible to tell, she didn’t, but this may be the only stone left unturned in this extraordinarily thorough study of French seduction. Elaine Sciolino was advised to find herself a French lover for research purposes; as far as
If there’s one thing guaranteed to send a reviewer’s spirits plummeting, it’s opening a book and finding that the spellyng is orl rong If there’s one thing guaranteed to send a reviewer’s spirits plummeting, it’s opening a book and finding that the spellyng is orl rong. Bugga thys 4 a larque, hee thynks (awe wurds
Last year, with William Ryan’s The Holy Thief, detective-fiction aficionados welcomed the thrillingly horrific first instalment in a new series set in 1930s Moscow. Last year, with William Ryan’s The Holy Thief, detective-fiction aficionados welcomed the thrillingly horrific first instalment in a new series set in 1930s Moscow. In his first outing, Alexei Dmitrievich Korolev,
Harry Enfield has said that ‘comedy without Galton and Simpson would be like literature without Dickens,’ and he may be right. Their two most lasting creations, Hancock’s Half Hour (illustrated above) and Steptoe & Son, influenced almost everything of worth that came after, from Fawlty Towers and Porridge to The Office and Gavin and Stacey.
I’m sure Karl Rove is, on this at least, correct: Rick Perry’s book will cause him problems for as long as he remains in the race for the Republican nomination. To put it gently, few Americans believe that Social Security and many other federal programmes are unconstitutional; even fewer are likely to vote for a
Is the book — the solid, rectangular repository of the whole damn thing, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 32 — always and in principle the superior vehicle for a story? Is the book — the solid, rectangular repository of the whole damn thing, from Chapter 1 to Chapter 32 — always and in principle the
No one could say that we didn’t have warning of these events in the most specific terms. A month before 11 September 2001, the President’s daily intelligence brief was headed ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.’ Other official warnings from this time and earlier were so specific, and so specifically ignored, that a former
In 1971, at the height of the Indo-Pakistan war, my parents took me with them to Bombay. I was ten and it was my first trip abroad. My father worked for Brooke Bond, and had ‘tea business’ to attend downtown. First we checked into the Taj Hotel. On the waterfront, beggar children with lurid wounds
A fact which often surprises those who pick up the Bible in adulthood, having not looked at it for years, is how very short the stories are. Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, the Feeding of the Five Thousand — in spite of their familiarity they are raced through in just a few lines. It is,
‘This book is a chronicle of one day in the history of one city.’ As first sentences go, that one is hard to beat — particularly given that the ‘one day’ is the last day of the Soviet Union, the city is Moscow and the author, an Irish journalist, was there and knew most of
The most telling figure in Carey Schofield’s book on the Pakistan army is Faisal Alavi, a major general who was murdered in November 2008. The most telling figure in Carey Schofield’s book on the Pakistan army is Faisal Alavi, a major general who was murdered in November 2008. As head of Pakistan’s special forces, Alavi
In his Modern English Usage, Henry Fowler used the term Wardour Street for ‘a selection of oddments calculated to establish (in the eyes of some readers) their claim to be persons of taste and writers of beautiful English’. In his Modern English Usage, Henry Fowler used the term Wardour Street for ‘a selection of oddments
Dr Temperance Brenner, like her creator, Kathy Reichs, is a forensic anthropologist. She works in North Carolina, specialising in ‘decomps and floaters’. This ensures that in Flesh and Bones (Heinemann, £18.99) you get plenty of authentic sounding detail with your gore. So when a human hand is found sticking out of a drum full of
The Booker Prize longlist is perennially accused of pandering to the masses and to publishing publicity departments in particular. Heaven forbid the award might encourage reading or even book-buying. This year highbrow eyebrows shot up even further at the inclusion of titles so obscure they made current front-runner DJ Taylor, put forward for Derby Day,
As The Hemlock Cup is released in paperback, Daisy Dunn engages in some Socratic Dialogue with its author, historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes I get the impression from your book that Socrates must have been quite aware of his own eccentricity, or oddness. Do you think he knew he was doomed from the start? In
“The death of books has been greatly exaggerated,” says novelist Lloyd Shepherd in the Guardian. He has written a detailed statistical analysis of the long-term trends in the trade and presents a positive outlook, perhaps too positive. His case hinges on two standout facts. Book sales in the UK have increased by 42 per cent over
“Dickens with magic! How much better can it get!” “Don’t be put off by the slightly old-fashioned style or by the dire films that have been made! This is a really exciting, rip-roaring adventure. Funny, scarry, brilliant book.” “Tremendously rich, delectably slow in pace, and packed to the binding with much to make you think.”
It seemed wrong, somehow, to include a story about the travails of Chorion, the company that owns Mr Men, Noddy, Poirot and Raymond Chandler, in the round-up of the weekend’s literary pages. But the news that the firm is close to entering administration made its way into both the Sunday Times and the Telegraph. Were
Robert McCrum profiles Michael Ondaatje to coincide with the publication of Ondaatje’s latest novel, The Cat’s Table. ‘The eyes of Michael Ondaatje, prize-winning author of The English Patient, are a baffling window on the inner man: the brilliant, pale sapphires of a witty Dutch burgher set in a 68-year-old Tamil frame. As he says of
Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s Mr Tibbits’s Catholic School captures the hilarity and pathos of an eccentric headmaster and the unusual establishment he founded in Kensington in the Thirties. A.N.Wilson introduces us to his funny, peculiar world There are two sorts of school stories. Much the most popular, of course, are those that observe the drama of
‘Owl?’ said Pooh. ‘What’s a biography?’ ‘A biography,’ replied Owl, ‘is an Important Book. Such as an Interested Person might read. Anyone who is interested in the real-life toys which inspired you and Piglet and the others, for instance, might be tempted to read The Life and Times of Winnie the Pooh by Shirley Harrison.’
Christopher Ondaatje is best known as a member of the great and the good and a generous patron of the arts, notably the National Portrait Gallery. The pieces collected in this book give glimpses of another, quite different life as a traveller and writer. Ondaatje’s family were long-established Dutch tea planters in Ceylon. In 1947
These two books make mutually illuminating and surprisingly contrasting companions, given the similarity of their subjects. Both are written by those with hands-on experience in the field of art preservation and security. Sandy Nairne was Director of Programmes at the Tate Gallery in 1994 when two important paintings by J.M.W. Turner were stolen while on
During the Twenties and Thirties, the Estonian capital of Tallinn was known to be a centre for espionage, infiltrated by White Russian intriguers bent on blocking Bolshevik access to north-west Europe. Graham Greene first visited in the spring of 1934 — ‘for no reason’, he writes in his memoir Ways of Escape, ‘except escape to
An Oxford don and poet, Patrick McGuinness lived in Bucharest in 1989, and in this fictionalised account of the regime’s death throes he puts his first-hand experience to compelling use. An Oxford don and poet, Patrick McGuinness lived in Bucharest in 1989, and in this fictionalised account of the regime’s death throes he puts his