The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Something in the air is arousing an interest in collectors and collections — both private and public — of which the success of The Hare with Amber Eyes and The Children’s Book are perhaps the most visible recent examples. Something in the air is arousing an interest in collectors and collections — both private and
Simon Baron-Cohen has spent 30 years researching the way our brains work. His study of autism led to The Essential Difference, which asked, ‘Are you an empathiser or a systemiser?’ The book was highly influential; its ‘male-brain’ and ‘female-brain’ definitions have entered common parlance. In Zero Degrees of Empathy he aims to move examination of
Fay Maschler has written the Bookend column in this week’s magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog: In existence for over 250 millions years, lobsters come in two distinct varieties, ‘clawed and clawless’. Human predators tend to the flawed and clueless as they overfish and — since lobsters must be cooked live —
It is fifty years since the publication of Catch-22. The Spectator Book Club will be running a series of pieces on the book and we hope that readers will lead the debate, as part of our reader’s review feature. Catch-22 is a book you either love or hate. So, we want to publish two polemics
Reviewers this week flexed their intellectual muscles as they got to grips with clever clogs Edward St Aubyn’s latest novel. His roman-a-clef At Last was a double boon: the perfect opportunity not only to indulge in a spot of sordid literary gossip but also to parade their mastery of the Literae Humaniores. And in numbers
A few intrepid writers from the Right braved the lion’s den of the left-wing Orwell Prize last night, dominated as it was by hordes of hacks from the Guardian, the Observer, and the New Statesman. One of these brave souls even won an award. ConservativeHome’s Graeme Archer, whose quietly angry and deeply considered blog-posts took the
The Orwell Prize will be awarded this evening and one of the following books will win: Death to the Dictator!, Afsaneh Moqadem Afsaneh Moqadem’s Death to the Dictator! is the fashionable choice for the award. Written by an Iranian dissident using a pseudonym to protect his anonymity, Death to the Dictator! is a fictionalisation of
Pretty much my new favourite thing: Peanut Tweeter. Random tweets from around the world inserted into not-wholly-random Peanuts galleries. Weirdly cool and fun. Hurrah for the internet. Thus: And: Many more here. [Thanks to RF]
As part of the Guardian’s SF weekend, Iain M Banks says that the genre is not for dabblers. ‘The point is that science fiction is a dialogue, a process. All writing is, in a sense; a writer will read something – perhaps something quite famous, even a classic – and think “But what if it
Foundling Voices at the Foundling Museum in London’s Bloomsbury (until 30 October) is the fruit of an oral history project that recorded the memories of 74 men and women (the youngest is now 68, the oldest 98) born to unmarried mothers who were placed as babies in the care of the Foundling Hospital Schools in
‘I’ve refused to become a prisoner of “Piss Christ”,’ said the photographer Andres Serrano, referring to his 1987 photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass filled with urine. ‘I’ve refused to become a prisoner of “Piss Christ”,’ said the photographer Andres Serrano, referring to his 1987 photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass
Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits alone should have secured him a place in history as a major Renaissance painter. Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits alone should have secured him a place in history as a major Renaissance painter. Yet, ironically, while his works continued to be admired, his name was all but forgotten. This paradoxical state of affairs came
In 1879, two young brothers moved into a new fifth-floor apartment at no. 31 Boulevard Haussmann, overlooking the Opéra. Flush with inheritances from their father’s army bunk business, Gustave Caillebotte, 31, and his brother Martial, 26, were exactly the sort of children of the Second Empire for whom these new Parisian mansion blocks had been
From across Margate Bay, the prickly silhouette of the new Turner Contemporary art gallery points towards the sea like prows of departing cruise liners. Here at last is the inspired intervention in economy and townscape to encourage resurgence in the south-east of England as has been catalysed by Tate St Ives in the south-west. Margate
Andrew Lambirth on the special relationship between the artists Zoran Music and Ida Barbarigo that is explored in an exhibition that shows their work together for the first time in more than half a century At the Estorick Collection, a modest north London townhouse, there is until 12 June a most engaging exhibition devoted to
You can’t get much more country than Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down. Here’s a take on that classic lament performed by Waylon Jennings:
As Attack the Block is being touted as ‘the new Shaun of the Dead’ I expected a light-hearted romp rather than something quite bloody and nasty, although this does, at least, come in at a highly manageable 88 minutes. As Attack the Block is being touted as ‘the new Shaun of the Dead’ I expected
I rarely visit the Jermyn Street theatre because it’s too nice. I rarely visit the Jermyn Street theatre because it’s too nice. A small, raffish space just off Piccadilly, it has plush crimson seats and good-natured staff who never to fail to press a welcoming glass of claret into my hand. To criticise one of
‘Shakespeare’s Lost Play Re-imagined’, thus Gregory Doran’s subtitle to Cardenio. The play appears to have been lost in the Globe fire of 1613, but why should the RSC’s chief associate director have wanted to ‘re-imagine’ and stage it as the inaugural production in the refurbished Swan? ‘Shakespeare’s Lost Play Re-imagined’, thus Gregory Doran’s subtitle to
It is inevitable that a festival the size of the Proms should become a showcase not just for the artists taking part, but also for the way classical music is perceived more generally. There would be no point in a public services’ provider such as the BBC launching such an enterprise every year if it
The Trouble with Love and Sex (Wednesday, BBC2) was extraordinary and quite successful. They took two couples plus one lonely single chap, recorded them talking to counsellors at Relate (formerly the Marriage Guidance Council, following the same rule by which the Royal Association for the Protection and Furtherance of Deaf Persons would become Eh?) and
‘She hung up and ended the interview,’ said John Humphrys on Saturday morning’s Today programme (Radio 4), sounding rather bemused. ‘She hung up and ended the interview,’ said John Humphrys on Saturday morning’s Today programme (Radio 4), sounding rather bemused. Had he really been cut off mid-round? The battle not yet won. He’d just been
Imagine a 77-year-old woman hanging around, say, Leicester bus station, telling people about her life. She confides her belief that she is under surveillance by the military. She maintains that she can ‘see the reality of the web of synchronicity in my life’. Showing off her special jewellery that ‘helps balance the chakras’, she reveals
There are more than 100,000 American and Allied troops in Afghanistan. That is, there are more than 1,000 troops for every suspected al-Qa’eda ‘operative’. Not for the first time in Afghanistan means, ways and ends appear to be out of kilter. There are more Nato troops than are needed to combat al-Qa’eda but not enough
Juvenilia is an unfortunate word, with its connotations of the derogatory ‘juvenile’. Juvenilia is an unfortunate word, with its connotations of the derogatory ‘juvenile’. When they reach adult estate, most writers prefer their early work to be forgotten. But publishers have long ferreted about to unearth the juvenilia of anyone with half a name.Though the
This is a book which is sometimes so private that reading it seems very nearly like an act of invasiveness. There is nothing salacious or rude in it, but its tone of voice is whispered, intimate, as though the reader were an interloper, a clumsy stumbler into the most secret thoughts of the author. Its
At Last is the fifth — and, it’s pretty safe to say, most eagerly awaited — of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. At Last is the fifth — and, it’s pretty safe to say, most eagerly awaited — of Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels. The first three, now called the Some Hope trilogy,
There’s something wrong with these diaries. There’s something wrong with these diaries. This is not to disparage the scholarly efforts of their editor, Dr Catterall, nor the skill with which he seems to have pruned the original papers (twice the length) into the greatest coherence achievable, nor his helpful contextualisation and calmly rational explanatory notes.
Sugar transformed our world. From its origins in New Guinea, this tall sappy grass initially made slow progress around the globe. It reached India in 500 BC, and then travelled harmlessly to Persia, arriving 1,000 years later. But, in the early 15th century, it reached Europe, and suddenly everything changed. Sugar would become the catalyst
