The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
In 1932 a young English art historian recently returned from his travels sent an enthusiastic article to The Spectator about a series of brand new murals he had seen in the courtyards of the Ministry of Education in Mexico City: All these paintings [he wrote] are conscious expositions of Communism. The ultimate object … is
On the morning of Saturday 30 June 1860, the mutilated body of three-year Savill Kent was discovered in an outside privy at Road House, Wiltshire. The circumstances suggested that the murderer was almost certainly a member of the boy’s family or one of their servants. The case became something of a national obsession because of
Mike Leigh. Ground-breaking maverick or pretentious miseryguts? To ask the man himself isn’t perhaps the best way to secure an impartial verdict, but the personality that emerges in this series of interviews (composed with superb fluency by Amy Raphael) is an articulate, engaging, generous, highly original and occasionally peppery creative spirit. No British film-maker since
I must first declare an interest, now almost subliminal, in the subject of this vast, comprehensive, polymorphous and wholly captivating book. I was six when the war broke out and 12 when it ended. I read a lot of the books described new, as well as many more that were older. I remember the Magnet,
Attention Wire fans: if you haven’t done so already you should really make sure you read Peter Mosko’s new book, Cop in the Hood. Moskos, a Princeton and Harvard sociologist actually joined the Baltimore Police Department and spent more than a year patrolling in the city’s Eastern District ghetto (where much of The Wire was
The third volume of Simon Gray’s incomparable ‘smoking diaries’ opens with a bold statement of intent to drop the habit that has sustained and comforted him for more than six decades. The third volume of Simon Gray’s incomparable ‘smoking diaries’ opens with a bold statement of intent to drop the habit that has sustained and
What do they know of Oxford who only Oxford know? Justin Cartwright, a raw colonial from South Africa, arrived as a prospective law student at Trinity in the mid- Sixties. Now, a prize-winning novelist, he has contributed to a series ‘The Writer and the City’ and succumbed for a second time to charms which he
There are two ways of writing a successful book about oneself. The first is to be so successful in life that you command attention regardless of your prose style. The second, adopted by Ferdinand Mount, is to place the author in a self-deprecating way at the centre of a whirling mass of colourful and entertaining
In a recent review of They Knew They Were Right, Jacob Heilbrunn’s book about the neo-conservatives, Mark Lilla began by asking: How many of you are sick to death of hearing about City College in the 1930s, Alcove One and Alcove Two, the prima donnas at Partisan Review, who stopped speaking to whom at which
Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the New York based Earth Institute, has established a formidable reputation as someone who thinks hard, and worries even harder, about the future of the planet. His latest book, Common Wealth, like its predecessor, The End of Poverty, reviews the major issues of international economic development in the early 21st
Jonathan Powell was the most durable of Tony Blair’s inner circle — and, in the affairs of Northern Ireland, much the most influential. Jonathan Powell was the most durable of Tony Blair’s inner circle — and, in the affairs of Northern Ireland, much the most influential. He remained in post long after the other Blairites
As a young girl in Athens, Maria Callas would watch the films of the extraordinary Hollywood actress Deanna Durbin, and, entranced by that child-star’s utterly perfect voice, vowed to become an opera singer. A couple of decades later la diva divina went backstage at a New York theatre to congratulate another former child star with
The materialist humanists are winning — or have, perhaps, already won — the battle for possession of the moral conscience of the modern western world. The issues involved should have been brought into focus by public debate over the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, but in reality all the debate has done is to demonstrate
This brilliantly murky novel describes a nightmarish ten days in the life of a famous, highly successful but deeply dysfunctional family. The action takes place in prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes — and the House of Commons. Involved in this brutal tale are three tall, handsome, Old Etonian brothers — a Labour MP, a stinking
‘Have you your next book in mind?’ ‘Not yet, I can’t fix on a subject,’ my friend replied. ‘What about Ouida?’ I said. Actually this exchange has taken place a couple of times, and on each occasion my suggestion was received without enthusiasm. Perhaps it was thought patronising: Victorian romantic novelist, suitable subject for a
A man whose personal life contains as many potentially unflattering episodes as V. S. Naipaul might easily have been resistant to the idea of biographical scrutiny. In fact, however, Naipaul has shown himself remarkably hospitable to the idea. In 1994 he went so far as to say: ‘A full account of a writer’s life might
Philip Ziegler reviews a collection of history essays To invite 20 eminent historians to describe the world-changing event in history which they most wish they had witnessed is an ingenious publishing idea likely to produce an entertaining and even modestly instructive book. Happy evenings could be spent around the dinner table debating the choices and suggesting
This is a book so remarkable that after finishing it you will find yourself casting the film that will surely get made. Kevin Myers, a young freelance Irish journalist — James Nesbitt, he of the Yellow Pages and Pontius Pilate; Pastor Oliver Cromwell Whiteside, a Protestant fundamentalist preacher who speaks throughout in the accents of
One of the difficult tasks when writing fiction about the recent past is to let the reader know the approximate year in which the action is taking place without giving the impression of scene-setting. A mediocre novelist will cram the early dialogue with clunky references to Ted Heath’s chances at the next election or the
God forgive me, but I do enjoy tales of woe from the Manhattan dating scene. The latest dispatch from the front lines comes courtesy of Rachel Donadio in today’s New York Times and happily it doesn’t disappoint. At the outset the experienced reader knows this is going to be a corker: Some years ago, I
Courtesy of Charles Moore in this week’s Spectator: Reviewing Stephen Robinson’s new biography of Bill Deedes in these pages last week, Peregrine Worsthorne was fierce against his old colleague. Worsthorne said that Deedes lacked the ‘willingness to tell the truth to power’ which is ‘indispensable’ to journalism. Bill did indeed hate confrontation, to a fault,
This intriguing novella tells the story of a drop of oil from its earlier form as the heart of a prehistoric horse to its combustion in the engine of a Ford, where it intersects with the lives of two humans. On one of these, ‘the soot particles of the ex-heart of the horse’ operate as
In this book John K. Cooley, who has spent a lifetime writing about international intrigue, investigates the subject of forgery. More specifically, he looks at the way people have tried to use forgery as a way of waging war or seizing power. It seems like a terribly dry subject at first — lots of stuff
As I intend to dispute the entire thesis on which this little book rests, I should say at the outset that it is one of the best short contributions to an important argument I have ever read. Cleanly and crisply written, entertaining and clear, and packed with factual ammunition, Counterknowledge makes the ideal companion for
Sam Leith reviews Toby Faber’s history of Fabergé eggs What a great idea for a book, this is — and how well-executed. Toby Faber has produced, at just the length to suit it, a hugely enjoyable and informative account of the making and afterlife of the best-known examples of the jeweller’s art. Here is a series
Early on the morning of 21 September 1809 two ministers of the crown in the Duke of Portland’s cabinet met to fight a duel on Putney Heath: they were George Canning the Foreign Secretary and Lord Castlereagh who was what we would now call Minister of War. Castlereagh the challenger was a crack shot; Canning
Norman Mailer spent his life hunting for a subject big enough to suit or satisfy his titanic ego. The post- humous On God suggests he finally hit the spot. The Almighty is made to come across as an embattled novelist — as a version of Norman Mailer himself in fact — ‘a mighty source of
‘You can tell a river-lover. They cannot help but pause on a bridge to investigate what lies beneath.’ It is hard to imagine anyone not doing that, but our author is a generous soul and wishes to include us all in his passion. I wanted to celebrate the ways in which rivers stirred spirits and
Why do we write? Dr Johnson had no doubts, or pretended to have none: ‘no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money’. This is manifestly false, unless you make writing for some other reason one of your definitions of the word ‘blockhead’. In any case it’s not true of Johnson himself. Despite the