The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Sam Leith: The book that I’ve found myself telling other people about most has been Through The Language Glass, Guy Deutscher’s gripping pop-science book about linguistics and neuropsychology, describing how language shapes our perception of reality. I also hope people look at the handsomely produced A Hedonist’s Guide to Art. I must confess an interest:
Cressida Connolly: Polly Samson’s new collection of short stories, Perfect Lives is terrific. Funny, beautifully observed and often poignant, they’re the best thing Samson has produced yet. Whether she’s recording the minutiae of modern marriage or the flora and fauna of a riverbank, this is a writer who misses nothing. The Collected Stories of Lydia
Elizabeth Baines is a novelist, playwright and blogger. Her work can be found at www.elizabethbaines.com, and she blogs at http://elizabethbaines.blogspot.com and at the cutting http://fictionbitch.blogspot.com. Her first novel The Birth Machine has been reissued as it was originally intended; here she relates why. Christmas, a time for dreaming, and here, sure enough, are the Christmas
Charlotte Moore: I revelled in David Kynaston’s Family Britain and am longing for the next instalment of this densely packed, non-judgmental social history of mid-20th-century Britain. Michael Frayn’s memoir My Father’s Fortune is exemplary; touching, funny, cleverly constructed and kind. I returned to Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour after 20 years and found it still perfect.
Julian Barnes is fast challenging William Trevor as the modern master of the short story. Barnes’ second collection of short stories, The Lemon, delved into life’s complexities and he dives deeper with this latest collection, Pulse. Each character is attuned to a ‘pulse’ – an amalgamation of a life-force and an Aristotelian flaw. They struggle
A.N. Wilson: Stuart Kelly’s Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation is a very engaging, highly intelligent conversation with its readers about what we owe to Walter Scott. His heritage is found not only in literature, but also in tourism, in the banking crisis (Kelly has some good things to say about The Letters of
Here is the second installment from the magazine. Paul Johnson: The book I relished most from 2010 was John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1883–1899. This is volume 5 in the catalogue raisonné being lovingly compiled by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray and published by Yale at £50. It contains a detailed account of Sargent’s
Some of you are going to be appalled that it has taken me till now to read Trollope’s Autobiography. And quite right too. If I’d read it in my mid-twenties instead of my mid-forties, I would have had two dozen novels under my belt by now instead of a measly five-and-a-half. And you would never
P. J. O’Rourke is what happens when America does Grumpy Old Men. P. J. O’Rourke is what happens when America does Grumpy Old Men. Instead of sour-faced curmudgeons bleating that ‘politics is just a load of crap’, you get a succession of amusing and incisive observations about why politics is a load of crap. And
N.B. This review was published without its final two paragraphs in the 18th December 2010 issue of The Spectator. These paragraphs have been reinstated for the online version below. These volumes — four for now, and a further six to come — are saddled with a title redolent of lantern lectures delivered in Godalming, say,
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Richard Cohen, who was a publishing director of Hutchinson and Hodder before moving to New York where he now teaches Creative Writing, is the author of one previous book: By the Sword: Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers and Olympic Champions (2002). This comprehensive history drew on his deep, personal knowledge of the subject, for Cohen was
‘Nothing succeeds like excess,’ quipped Oscar Wilde, and Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Aida at La Scala, Milan in 2006 bears him out: for sheer jaw-dropping, applause- garnering theatrical bling, I have never seen anything like it and I doubt I ever will. ‘Nothing succeeds like excess,’ quipped Oscar Wilde, and Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Aida
The first Broadway musical that I saw, a quarter of a century ago, actually on Broadway, wasn’t, of course, actually on Broadway; it was on West 44th Street. The first Broadway musical that I saw, a quarter of a century ago, actually on Broadway, wasn’t, of course, actually on Broadway; it was on West 44th
M. R. James died at peace with himself and the world. We can be reasonably confident in claiming that after reading about his last weeks, during which he was ill, tired, weak and bored but probably not in pain, and even more on learning what his sister Grace said of his final days. During the
The humorist Paul Jennings suggested that book reviewers could be divided into five vowel-coded groups: batchers, betjers (‘Betjer I could have written this better than him/her’), bitchers, botchers and butchers. In this review of the year’s art books, I am primarily a batcher — dealing with several books at one go. But from time to
Javier Marias’s elegant new volume is a collection of ghost stories, but its alluring dust jacket, illustrating the first tale, shows us a sunny midsummer image of a woman in a bikini admiring herself on a beach. Javier Marias’s elegant new volume is a collection of ghost stories, but its alluring dust jacket, illustrating the
All modern biographies, one could say, are books of secrets; certainly all biographers during the past four decades have felt entitled to ferret around in their subject’s private as well as public lives. All modern biographies, one could say, are books of secrets; certainly all biographers during the past four decades have felt entitled to
Barry Hills has never been an easy man to love but I don’t suppose he would have it any other way. Barry Hills has never been an easy man to love but I don’t suppose he would have it any other way. There are certain trainers who capture the public imagination and affection, but the
Here is the latest Bookends column from this week’s issue of the Spectator: P. J. O’Rourke is what happens when America does Grumpy Old Men. Instead of sour-faced curmudgeons bleating that ‘politics is just a load of crap’, you get a succession of amusing and incisive observations about why politics is a load of
Sebastian Faulks examines the history of the English novel through its most enduring, though not endearing characters. Faulks on Fiction returns to BBC Two with a Peter Greenaway-inspired title The Hero, The Lover, The Snob and The Villain. Mr Darcy, Robinson Crusoe, Chanu and John Self are all subjected to a session of Faulks’ post-modern
Judging by the critical reaction, Jonathan Franzen Freedom is a Marmite book. But, even those who love Franzen’s latest trip to the heart of America concede that The Corrections is a far superior book. The Corrections is a book of riveting scope, tempestuous depths and exact style: a convincing pretender to the title of ‘Greatest
Our colleagues at the magazine have kindly allowed us to republish the books of the year columns. Here’s the first installment. Anita Brooker Society is composed of two classes: the patrons and the patronised, and a change of status, the migration of the one to the other, is a subject well worth studying. Michel Houellebecq,
Here is a brief selection of the best offerings from the world’s literary pages: Whilst the chattering classes are reverberating to Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, Jon Michaud of the New Yorker isn’t: ‘I breathed a sigh of relief and held up my hands like a distance runner breaking the tape. Though “Freedom” is sizable enough at
Christmas is coming, and the bookshelf is getting thin – so, any suggestions for Christmas reading? We are putting our Christmas Special to bed today, so your baristas at Coffee House would be grateful for any tips. I don’t need to say that we’re not after politics books. Coffee House is not simply a home
References to rap, hip-hop, bling and life in ‘da hood’ are a rare sight on literary pages. But, in his donnish but beery style, Will Self piloted through his love-hate affair with the genre in the Times recently. Decoded, a new book by one of the proponents of rap-as-literature, Jay Z, comes in for some
Free from the cares of office, Andrew Motion has been busy. In fact, he has been a frenzy of activity. His output on Bob Dylan, Philip Larkin and the like has been well publicised; however, the Motion Report into poetry in schools is less well-known. I still have dreams about my short-trousered self standing
Salley Vickers name-checks (surely unwisely) the granddaddy of all short stories, James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, in the foreword to her first collection, Aphrodite’s Hat (Fourth Estate, £16.99). Salley Vickers name-checks (surely unwisely) the granddaddy of all short stories, James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, in the foreword to her first collection, Aphrodite’s Hat (Fourth Estate, £16.99). However,
Philip Hensher finds Flaubert’s scorn for his characters relieved by hilarity Astonishingly, this is the 20th time Madame Bovary has been translated into English. I say ‘astonishing’ because, as everyone knows, great novels in foreign languages tend to get done once, if at all. Most of Theodore Fontane has never been translated, or Jean-Paul, or