Culture

Culture

The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.

The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue

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Emily ‘Fido’ Faithfull, a stout, plain, clever Victorian, founder-member of the feminist Langham Place group, manager of the ground-breaking Victoria Press which extends employment possibilities for women, has her story lightly fictionalised in The Sealed Letter. The action starts with the return from a posting to Malta of Fido’s erstwhile best friend, Helen Codrington, a

The Diamond Queen by Andrew Marr

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‘Of making many books there is no end’, particularly when the subject is Queen Elizabeth II. It is less than ten years since Ben Pimlott and Sarah Bradford independently produced authoritative and excellent biography-centred books on the Queen. Since then a fair number of minor studies have appeared. Can enough have happened in the meantime,

Susan Hill

Blue Night by Joan Didion

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This is a raw, untidy, ragged book. Well, grief is all of those things. On the other hand, Didion wrote about the death of her husband in an iconic memoir, A Year of Magical Thinking, which apart from being raw was none of them. So she knows how it can be done.  That book was

A History of English Food by Clarissa Dickson Wright

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It is where cookery is involved that tele-vision gives perhaps the greatest succour to the book trade. After Jennifer Paterson’s death in 1999, the remaining ‘Fat Lady’ barrelled into view with Clarissa and the Countryman, Clarissa and the King’s Cookbook, as a gamekeeper in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous and as presenter for a documentary

The Brain is Wider Than the Sky by Bryan Appleyard

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With all the advances of science, we may be no nearer to understanding ourselves than before, says Anthony Daniels — but we shouldn’t dismiss the possibility outright Some years ago I had a patient who believed that his neighbours, unskilled workers like himself, had developed an electronic thought-scanner whose antennae they could, and did, direct

A mark of respect

The Divinity School at the Bodleian library was the setting for the Clutag Press‘s 10th birthday party celebrations this evening. Several of Clutag’s authors from down the years convened to read excerpts of their work to a large public audience. Andrew Motion was the star attraction, although you wouldn’t have known that from his unassuming

Shining light on a dimly lit world

Edward IV was a conflicted man. He was a prodigious boozer and wencher, and a voracious reader and thinker. The bon vivant founded the English Royal Library: an assortment of illuminated books from England and continental Europe, some of which were bound before the Norman Conquest. It was a treasury of 100s of years of

The art of fiction: Armistice edition

A change from the usual format this week, as it is Armistice Day. This clip is taken from a documentary made in conjunction with Simon Armitage’s 2008 war collection, The Not Dead. The veteran is quoting from Armitage’s poem, ‘The Malaya Emergency’. It speaks for itself. Later today, Radio Four’s afternoon play will be devoted

A woman with a cause or two

P.D. James has already said a great deal about her love of Austen, her love of the mystery genre and her new book Death Comes to Pemberley. She was in London earlier this evening, talking again about how her enthusiasms became manifest in a book. She is a self-effacing and hugely erudite speaker; a natural

Shelf Life: Tom Hollander

Next off the shelf is actor Tom Hollander. He tells us what children ought to read at school, which party from literature he’d most like to attend, and that his dream is to play Victor Hugo’s most tragic hero. The first episode of the new series of ‘Rev.’, in which he stars, airs tonight at 9pm on

An evening for Christopher Hitchens

‘Christopher Hitchens in conversation with Stephen Fry’ this wasn’t — Hitchens had been struck down with pneumonia. No matter, ‘Stephen Fry and friends on the life, loves and hates of Christopher Hitchens’ at the South Bank didn’t disappoint.  Sean Penn was the first to offer his memories, fittingly complete with cigarette – an irony it

Reading more than just the menu

Do you read at mealtimes? And if so, what? The fact you’re looking at this blog in the first place leads me to believe you may be a fan of books. And while there is the odd person around who doesn’t like food, they are just that – odd. Surely most of us would agree

Vikram Seth shows the way

Literary festivals are a very big deal in India, if Vikram Seth is to be believed. Seth made an impromptu appearance at the Mumbai literary festival last week. “The whole thing was pretty chancy. I was supposed to be in England for the launch of The Rivered Earth yesterday. I was in Mumbai for the

Shelf Life: Jane Asher

Jane Asher is second in the hot seat. She tells us how to get children reading; who she would have a literary fling with and what exactly would make her end a friendship. 1) What are you reading at the moment? Inspired by seeing her interviewed recently, I’m catching up with Diana Athill’s collected memoirs:

A quirky dish

The four-hundredth anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible has produced some great books. Almost all aspects have been covered: the general histories of Melvyn Bragg and Gordon Campbell ranged over the politics and history, while David Crystal’s Begat showed how its idioms and phrases have percolated through our language. Now, in The

Alex Massie

Back to the Mainland

Back on the mainland after a magical week on Jura* and, frankly, reacquainting oneself with whatever’s been happening in the rest of the world is a pretty grim business. Must be done however, so expect a measure of catch-up blogging here soon. What happened last week that mattered? *Should you be tempted to visit the

Watch this space, Amazon

Yesterday, American bookstore Barnes & Noble launched its latest crusade against the Kindle. At a special conference at its New York headquarters, it unveiled the ‘Nook’ tablet to a raucous fanfare. The Bookseller reports that “everything about the press conference was an aggressive counter-punch to its main rival and its tactics”. The Kindle was compared to a

Briefing note: Richard Bradford’s Martin Amis biography

Richard Bradford styled his biography of Martin Amis as ‘The biography’, an odious gesture that would tempt fate on even the busiest day. Are there any scoops? With the exception of a few mild indiscretions from Christopher Hitchens — no, there are not. Early in the piece, Bradford thanks Amis for his ‘co-operation’, which amounted to five

Painting with words

As Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan opens at the National Gallery, Daisy Dunn looks at his famous Renaissance biographer, Giorgio Vasari. Giorgio Vasari’s book The Lives of the Most Eminent Artists, Sculptors, and Architects, commonly abbreviated to The Lives is not what one might expect of a history, or a biography,

Kate Maltby

24-Hour Play People

This month, Mike Bartlett’s new play, 13, opens at the National. It follows the success of his play Earthquakes in London. At Paines Plough, George Perrin and James Grieve unveil the prototype for a revolutionary new theatre space, a portable in-the-round auditorium. And, at the Arcola, Tom Atkins brings us How The World Began, which

To Her Majesty the Queen

The regally refurbished St. Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster hosted a party this evening in honour of Robert Hardman and his new book, Our Queen. Hardman, a veteran royal correspondent, broke from the exhausting canapés (which were inspired by George VI and the Queen Mother’s hearty wedding breakfast – lobsters, black pudding, chicken and an array of fish), to

Giving in to the bullies

The Man Booker committee has appointed Peter Stothard as the chairman of next year’s judges. What a dreary decision. I’ve nothing against Sir Peter Stothard; the TLS is a fine, upstanding publication — although whether it can be said to ‘zip along’ is a matter of taste. No, it’s more that in picking someone so literary

Across the literary pages: tell me lies

Tomorrow is E-Day: the publication of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, The Prague Cemetery. The book concerns the fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion and how they were still accepted even after being exposed as a fabrication in 1921. This is natural territory for Eco the semiotician. He told the Times (£): ‘I always had an interest

Patrick O'Flynn

Spotify Sunday: Going underground with The Jam

The Jam were once described as the ‘last great English singles band’. For a group that released such classic chart-toppers as ‘Going Underground’ and ‘Town Called Malice’ that might seem fair enough, but it grievously underestimates their musical canon. The quality of their output on LPs, B-sides and even on recordings that were never released

Pride and homicide

‘I have to apologise to Jane Austen for involving her beloved Elizabeth in a murder investigation but this fusion of my two enthusiasms – for the novels of Jane Austen and for writing detective stories – has given me great pleasure which I hope will be shared by my readers.’ When you’re over 90 and

Stealing beauty

Arts feature

I’m standing alongside Angela Rosengart, in a room full of portraits Picasso drew of her, when something spooky happens. Out of the corner of my eye, the old woman beside me becomes the young woman on the wall. It’s over in an instant, but it’s still strange and rather wonderful. For a moment, Frau Rosengart

Sensation seeker

Exhibitions

For far too long, John Martin (1789–1854) has been dismissed as ‘Mad’ Martin, the prophet of doom. In the eyes of many, this unacademic painter was a grotesque curiosity, producing colossal pictures of apocalyptic destruction, crude dramas of catastrophe and tumult, much to the delight of the populace. The mere fact that he was so

Fantasy auction

Theatre

Have you ever felt the urge to rush backstage, brushing aside the objections of minders, and introduce yourself to a favourite actor? Or perhaps you’ve fantasised about dressing up in the old clothes of a Hollywood star? Don’t blush and walk away! We can reveal exclusively that you have nothing to be ashamed of. On