Books
Byron’s War, by Roderick Beaton - review
On 16 July 1823 a round-bottomed, bluff-bowed, dull-sailing collier-built tub of 120 tons called the Hercules made its slow, log-like way out of the port of Genoa. Roderick Beaton writes:… Read more
The Dark Road, by Ma Jian - review
If you are considering adopting — that is, buying — a Chinese baby girl, recycling a television or computer, or buying a Vuiton bag, think again. Ma Jian, author of… Read more
Whirligig, by Magnus Mcintyre - review
I do not have much time for the idea of the redemptive power of the countryside. I am not alone in this. Even theologians tend to dream of the day… Read more
Last Friends, by Jane Gardam - review
Any writer who embarks on a trilogy is either extremely confident or taking something of a risk. The danger is that the reader will have forgotten the first two volumes… Read more
Z, by Therese Anne Fowler, Beautiful Fools, by R. Clifton Spargo, Careless People, by Sarah Churchill - review
The Great Gatsby is one of those great works of literature, like Pride and Prejudice, that appeals as much to the general reader as to the literary bod. It’ll always… Read more
Everest, by Harriet Tuckey
This book, as the subtitle explains, makes a bold claim: Griffith Pugh was the ‘unsung hero’ of the 1953 ascent of Everest, his achievements neglected and nearly lost to posterity.… Read more
Global Crisis, by Geoffrey Parker - review
Just before I was sent this huge tour de force of a book to review, I happened to be reading those 17th-century diary accounts by Pepys and John Evelyn which… Read more
Night-fishers
They might almost be bushes, boulders, they sit so still. Night floods the meadow at their shoulders, brims the canal, and renders rod and line invisible. Traffic on the by-pass… Read more
The Last Train to Zona Verde, by Paul Theroux - review
Paul Theroux has produced some of the best travel books of the past 50 years, and some of the lamest. His latest work shrieks swansong, from its title — The… Read more
Russia: A World Apart, by Simon Marsden - review
Here are acres of desolate countryside, pockmarked by once great estates, ravaged by rot. Could it be much bleaker? Many aristocrats fled Russia during the Revolution. Even Tolstoy’s family were… Read more
Henry Cecil, by Brough Scott - review
This is by far the best book on racing I have ever read. It combines a truly extraordinary story — one that no novelist would have dared to submit —… Read more
The Garden of Eros, by John Calder - review
John Calder is Britain’s most distinguished living publisher, and at the age of 86 he’s still at it. He first set up in business in 1949 and went on to… Read more
The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson, edited by Harry Mount - review
It’s just a guess, but I suspect that the mere sight of this book would make David Cameron gnash his tiny, perfect dolphin teeth until his gums began to bleed.… Read more
Feral, by Geoge Monbiot - review
One of the greatest difficulties environmental activists have always had in the war for hearts ’n’ minds is that they so often seem priggish and negative. Everyone knows what they… Read more
All That Is, by James Salter- review
Some authors’ lives are a great deal more interesting than others — James Salter’s, for one. Born in 1925 and educated at West Point, a fighter pilot in Korea and… Read more
Red Nile, by Robert Twigger - review
When Bernini designed his fountain of the four rivers for the Piazza Navona in Rome in 1651 he draped the head of the god of the Nile with a loose… Read more
The Iraqi Christ, by Hassan Blasim - review
There is much about Hassan Blasim that demands attention. He is an Iraqi. He escaped from Saddam’s dictatorship in 2000 by walking to Iran and smuggling himself into Europe. He… Read more
The Half of It
A hot child sees itself and cries. The kind face kissing through the glass Perhaps half wants the things to come To be the things already done, Like thank-you letters.… Read more
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- The significance of Ed Balls’s speech, and what it means for Ukip James Forsyth
- Even a limited snooping bill is causing the Home Office trouble Isabel Hardman
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