The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
For 30 years Alastair Crooke was ostensibly a British diplomat working in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Columbia and Pakistan. Ten years ago he became Middle East adviser to Javier Solana, playing an important role in negotiating ceasefires between Israel and Hamas, as well as helping to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity
One’s past life is, usually, comfortably past. One’s past life is, usually, comfortably past. Susan Morrow’s first husband, Edward, is so firmly in her past that his second wife even sends her Christmas cards, signed ‘love’. Apart from that once-a-year token, she hasn’t heard from Edward in two decades. Their early marriage had been brief,
‘With time,’ writes David Remnick, ‘political campaigns tend to be viewed through the triumphalist prism of the winner.’ Never more so, perhaps, than in Remnick’s idolatrous new biography of Barack Obama, which presents the First Black President’s ascension to the White House as nothing less than a glorious saga. Deeply read — if not rooted
Ian Massey is a writer, artist and lecturer and this is his first book. There have been two previous books on Procktor: a ghosted autobiography and a slim volume to celebrate his 60th birthday. About the second, one reviewer wrote that what was next required was ‘a full retrospective to answer the critical question that
Once upon a time, an untrustworthy story- teller seemed rather an enterprising creation — and some great books were written this way, like Lolita and The Good Soldier (from which Blake Morrison takes an epigraph). But nowadays having a fibber as compère seems painfully predictable. Only if our dodgy raconteur is strikingly engaging or funny
It was the neon lit windowless corridor in the surgery in Dumfries that did it. It was June 1993 when Maggie Keswick and her husband Charles Jencks heard the prognosis that she had two to three months to live as the breast cancer had spread to her liver and her bones. In fact Maggie was
If stupidity is defined by the inability to connect an oft-repeated policy with the failure that it always produces, then Irish republicanism is easily the stupidest political movement in Europe. The claim of Irish republicanism is that it unites Catholic, Protestant and dissenter under the common title, Irishman. This is mountebank bluster. In fact, Irish
Ignore the title, with its subliminal echoes of Mills & Boon. Aminatta Forna’s magnificent second novel is not really about love. Its themes are far grittier, and all the more compelling for it: war, loss, and how a society emerging from civil strife must reinvent its own history, fabricating a tolerable narrative in order to
Contrary to the Romantic image of him as a solitary scribbler in a garret, William Shakespeare was a deeply collaborative artist. He wrote his plays for a particular theatre company, tailoring each part to the actor he knew would perform it. He began his career patching up old plays in the existing repertoire and ended
Long before the Allies landed in Normandy in June 1944 and began their advance across France, preparations were underway for what to do about the civilians who had been displaced by the German occupiers. What everyone feared was a repeat of the chaos that followed the first world war, when refugees and returning prisoners of
On the first page of this book there is a sentence so extraordinary that I had to read it several times to make sure my eyes weren’t playing up. On the first page of this book there is a sentence so extraordinary that I had to read it several times to make sure my eyes
‘My wife doesn’t understand me,’ the man said to his Jewish psychoanalyst. ‘I should be so lucky!’ was the reply. It’s a common complaint, not being understood. Yet surely only the most shameless would like others to know us exactly as we are or as we know ourselves. This is one reason some writers shrink
David Mitchell’s fifth novel, an exotically situated romance of astounding vulgarity, has some things to be said for it. David Mitchell’s fifth novel, an exotically situated romance of astounding vulgarity, has some things to be said for it. It will certainly entertain the simpler reader that lurks within all of us, the one that hungers
After 14 months working as an inter-dealer bond broker, posh totty Thompson was fired in February 2008 for gross misconduct. Her crime? Writing a warts-and-all article of the broking industry which was published in The Spectator. Enjoy- ment of this memoir (basically an extension of that original piece) will, I suspect, depend on either an
Final Demands is the third volume in Frederic Raphael’s trilogy, which began with the publication of The Glittering Prizes in 1976. Final Demands is the third volume in Frederic Raphael’s trilogy, which began with the publication of The Glittering Prizes in 1976. The second in the series, Fame and Fortune, did not follow until 2007;
When I became a cub reporter on the Times in 1963 (the front page was still covered with small-ads), an old sweat in the newsroom gave me two pieces of advice. The first was: Don’t get too proficient at shorthand. If you do, you’ll find yourself in a stuffy courtroom, recording the proceedings verbatim. The
For the impartial reader, this book is doubly disagreeable. An account of National Socialist short-wave radio broadcasts to the Arab world in the second world war, it prints pages of anti-Jewish propaganda as monotonous as it is vile. The author then shows no sympathy at all for Arab grievances, which makes the brew no more
One morning in 1979 a six-year-old American boy, Etan Patz, set off on foot to catch the bus to school — the first time he had been allowed to walk to the bus stop by himself. One morning in 1979 a six-year-old American boy, Etan Patz, set off on foot to catch the bus to
Ninety years after the ill-fated European peace settlement dictated by the victorious Allies at Versailles, it is fitting that a publisher should commission a series of 32 monographs devoted to the men and consequences of the Peace entitled ‘Makers of the Modern World’. Ninety years after the ill-fated European peace settlement dictated by the victorious
This may be an extreme point of view, but I think novelists should learn to drive. I don’t know how exactly, but a reader can tell when an author has never gripped a steering wheel. Perhaps there are no descriptions of motoring in any of the books, or too many train journeys — or else
Norman Stone forsook the chair of modern history at Oxford university for Ankara after realising that the ‘conversation at high tables would generally have made the exchanges in the bus- stop in the rain outside seem exhilarating’. Norman Stone forsook the chair of modern history at Oxford university for Ankara after realising that the ‘conversation
The memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga are an entertaining record for anyone interested in the imperial family’s home life during the last years of Russian autocracy. The memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga are an entertaining record for anyone interested in the imperial family’s home life during the last years of Russian autocracy. Olga
In 1931, a 23-year-old Englishman called Henry ‘Gino’ Watkins returned from an expedition to the white depths of the Greenlandic ice cap. In 1931, a 23-year-old Englishman called Henry ‘Gino’ Watkins returned from an expedition to the white depths of the Greenlandic ice cap. He was hailed as a precocious talent, even as a worthy
Peter Hitchens writes a stern column most weeks in the Mail on Sunday. It expresses disdain not only for today’s politicians but also for those of us who vote for them. The weekly Hitchens can leave even his fellow right-wingers feeling demoralised. He argues that David Cameron’s Tories are no better than Gordon Brown’s clowns.
Art fraudsters, especially forgers, have a popular appeal akin to Robin Hood. Their cock-a-snook cunning provides a twist on those money shots on the Antiques Roadshow when some dotty great aunt from Sidmouth discovers her umbrella stand is Ming Dynasty. ‘How much?’ cries Dotty. The forger levels the field from the other side of the
Above all, it is the inhuman scale of things which impresses the visitor to Moscow: the vastness of Red Square, the width of the uncrossable streets, the implacability of the traffic. The city’s history seems equally inhuman, haunted as it is by centuries of tyrants, millions of political prisoners, countless wars. Impossible to navigate and
The strange, unsettled decades between the wars form the backdrop of much of D. J. Taylor’s recent work, including his novel, Ask Alice, and his social history, Bright Young Things. At the Chime of a City Clock is set in 1931, with a financial crisis rumbling in the background. The strange, unsettled decades between the
Lesley Downer is one of the most unusual authors writing in English. Years ago, determined to become an expert on the Japanese geisha, ultra-sophisticated entertainers and hostesses who are neither prostitutes nor courtesans, she became a Kyoto geisha herself and wrote Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World. Now she has written her second
Voltaire’s was a long and amazing life. Voltaire’s was a long and amazing life. He was tragedian, satirist, mathematician, courtier, exile, jailbird, swindler, gardener, plutocrat, watchmaking entrepreneur, penal reform campaigner, celebrity, provocateur, useless loan-shark, serial feuder, coward, astronaut, niece-shagger, spy . . . Except ‘astronaut’, obviously. I made that up to check you were still
