The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
‘Servants’ and ‘service’ have not always meant ‘servility’. ‘Servants’ and ‘service’ have not always meant ‘servility’. From the Middle Ages right through to the 16th century, everyone was servant to someone: a lord was servant to the king, a lesser lord to a greater. Children likewise served in the households of their parents’ equals: service
The Museum of Innocence is the sixth novel by Turkey’s most garlanded novelist and his first since he became a Nobel laureate in 2006. The Museum of Innocence is the sixth novel by Turkey’s most garlanded novelist and his first since he became a Nobel laureate in 2006. Pamuk’s unflinching eye on his country’s history
The results of the Spectator-Barclays Wealth short story competition have been published over at the Spectator Book Club’s discussion boards. We received more than 500 entries of the highest quality, and trying to pick the winners from a shortlist of 10 inspired bitter debate at 22 Old Queen Street. The four runners-up have been printed
The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, by William Boyd Illustrated by Carolyn Gowdy Bethany Mellmoth is in a quandary — and she doesn’t like quandaries. It’s December 20th. Five days until Christmas. The fact that this is a Christmas quandary makes it no more bearable. In truth she thinks that this fact makes it more unbearable.
I never liked E. M. Forster much. He was too preachy and prissy, too snobbish about the suburbs, too contemptuous of the lower classes. I know this is not how a review is meant to begin. You may legitimately kick off by admitting that you have a soft spot for your subject, even perhaps that
In a remarkable way the trajectory of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s reputation after her death in 1967 parallels that of George Meredith’s in 1909. In a remarkable way the trajectory of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s reputation after her death in 1967 parallels that of George Meredith’s in 1909. A recipient of the OM and held in awe by such
These days, it is easy to take it for granted that Caravaggio (1571-1610) is the most popular of the old masters, yet it was not ever thus. In my Baedeker’s Central Italy (published exactly 100 years ago), he is acknowledged as having been ‘the chief of the Naturalist School’, but it is pointed out that
It is a cruel fact, but unhappy marriages, unless they are your own, are always comic. Hence the popularity of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Hence the universal applicability of the Victorian joke about the Carlyle marriage: that it showed the kindness of God — making two people unhappy instead of four. The marriage of Tolstoy and Sofia
During the night of 9 February 1916, two men were sitting on opposing shores of Lake Tanganyika. The longest lake in the world, it at that time divided German East Africa from the Belgian Congo. One of the men was Herr Kapitänleutnant Gustav von Zimmer, the other was an eccentric British navy officer, Commander Geoffrey
Are you staggered and amazed by today’s sleight-of-hand merchants? Are you staggered and amazed by today’s sleight-of-hand merchants? Perhaps David Blaine surviving in a block of solid ice for months leaves you cold? Or Darren Brown knowing your credit card number has you stifling a yawn? If something is missing from today’s masters of magic
How often, when listening to announcers or weather forecasters or politicians on the radio, do I think, ‘That’s an ugly voice’! This seldom applies to speakers with educated regional accents, such as Scottish, Irish or Yorkshire, but all too often to those from London or the Midlands where good standard English is becoming a rarity.
Despite its prosaic title, this is a humdinging page-turner of a book, revealing in livid detail the scandal of how the Church of England jettisoned onto the market what the author describes as ‘perhaps the most admirable, desirable and ascetic body of domestic buildings ever built’. Despite its prosaic title, this is a humdinging page-turner
With the opening paragraph of The Dogs and the Wolves (first serialised in France in 1939 and never previously translated) Irène Némirovsky takes us to the heart of her story: the complexities of Jewish life in eastern Europe and France in the first part of the 20th century. The Ukrainian city in which generations of
I approached the late David Nokes’s scholarly book with some trepidation, having heard that it had been criticised for its apparent dismissal of James Boswell. I approached the late David Nokes’s scholarly book with some trepidation, having heard that it had been criticised for its apparent dismissal of James Boswell. As I had gained all
The clue comes early on in the book. ‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat, ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter either to you or me. I’ve never been there and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again please.’
Here are two Alternative Reading Christmas gift ideas: books respectively by Gordon Brown and David Cameron. The Gordonian offering is by an ordained minister who wants to help you with your finances. ‘Gordon Brown’s message is very clear,’ the back cover says. The Cameronian offering is by a poet from Brooklyn, whose poems are ‘false
Jane Austen has become the most revered and probably the most popular of the great English novelists. Not even the vulgarisation of her novels by those who have adapted them for television has impaired the esteem in which she is held. She is not only deemed amusing, which she is, but a wonderfully fair and
A postal strike would have been a disaster for Van Gogh. Letters were his lifeline and consolation. Not only did he receive through the mail his regular allowance from his brother Theo but, in letter after letter in return, he poured out his thoughts and feelings, recorded his work in progress and conveyed his impressions
I have never met Roger Scruton, though I would like to; wine fans are slightly obsessional and enjoy clustering together, like trainspotters, though tasting rooms are more welcoming than the end of a platform at Crewe. We’re also very different. Shortly after I, working for the left-of-centre Guardian, became the wine writer for this conservative
After the Christmas ‘funny’ books, here’s an even larger pile of Christmas ‘quirky’ books. After the Christmas ‘funny’ books, here’s an even larger pile of Christmas ‘quirky’ books. In practice, quirky books aren’t just for Christmas, they’re for the whole year round. But try telling a publisher that. Thousands of them have been pouring out
In 1950, Irving Penn, working for Vogue in Paris, set himself up in a glass-roofed attic and, between fashion assignments, began a series of full-length portraits of tradesmen, inspired by the street portraits of Eugène Atget 50 years before. Later that year he continued the project in a painter’s studio in Chelsea. Penn found that
One thing which struck me immediately on surveying the books on offer for children this Christmas is the large number which are really toys, with only a minor bookish element. Walker Books have produced several of these this year. Cars by Robert Crowther (£12.99) boasts moveable pop-ups of cars ancient and modern, with realistic detail
When the Louvre invited me to organise for the whole of November 2009 a series of conferences, exhibitions, public readings, concerts, film projections and the like on the subject of my choice, I did not hesitate for a second and proposed the list. Thus Umberto Eco on the genesis of this book, published simultaneously in
I knew that I was onto a good thing with this book before the page numbers were even out of roman numerals. Describing the wealth of new material that has come to light in the three decades or so since the last biography of Thomas De Quincey, Robert Morrison men- tions the areas in which
Portugal has given the world two distinguished novelists. Eça de Queiros, is the Proust of Portugal. His masterpiece, The Maias, describes the decline of an aristocratic family in the late 19th century. Whereas Eça was a member of the Portuguese intellectual elite, José Saramago was born in a wretched shack in the the rural hamlet
Auction house catalogues are multi-faceted publications. Primarily, of course, they’re sales tools, reassuring buyers that something is what it says it is, that it can legally be bought and where to do just that. Yet, they’re so much more. They can be a simple full stop to one of life’s chapters or, alternatively, a celebratory
No one here (I mean in Britain, not perhaps in the columns of The Spectator) likes to read anything nice about the Germans. So I shall warn you that there will be some praise for Germany in this review, mixed with the usual level of bashing. If the very thought of this shocks or appals
In 1981, two books on Saudi Arabia were published within days of each other: The House of Saud by David Holden and Richard Johns and The Kingdom by Robert Lacey. If the first had the faint air of the Financial Times and the second the hothouse scent of Town & Country, they nevertheless advanced our
Philippa Lewis is a picture researcher, with an eye for uncommon facts and a wry way of presenting them. Her book Everything You Can Do in the Garden Without Actually Gardening (Frances Lincoln, £16.99), is a scholarly and entertaining social history with pictures. Most books of this type recycle old material, but this writer has