book reviews and features
Al Alvarez: 'If I drop dead this minute, I’ve had a terrific time'Monday, 23 September 2019
We like to think of ourselves as a nation of eccentrics, but some take their patriotic duties more seriously than others. Al Alvarez –... Read more... |
Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey: She Said review – better than the moviesSunday, 22 September 2019
October 5th in the United States is a day for righteous rage. In 2016 it marked the release of the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape in which Donald Trump made his now-infamous “grab them... Read more... |
10 Questions for author Martin GayfordSaturday, 21 September 2019
Over the past four decades Martin Gayford, The Spectator’s art critic, has travelled the world, been published in an amazing range of print and digital publications and written more than... Read more... |
Martin Gayford: The Pursuit of Art review - devotion, distilledSunday, 15 September 2019
This is a book about experiences that go beyond reading about art. Martin Gayford’s 20 short essays about press trips and self-motivated travel concern meetings – in the flesh, in real time and... Read more... |
Margaret Atwood: The Testaments review - pertinent but lacklustreSunday, 08 September 2019
You will doubtless have seen the protestors who dress as Gilean handmaids to protest anti-... Read more... |
William Dalrymple: The Anarchy review – masterly history of the first rogue corporationSunday, 08 September 2019
Serious historians don’t much care for counter-factual speculations. Readers, however, often enjoy them. So here’s mine. In 1780, the seemingly invincible forces of the East India Company had... Read more... |
A. N. Wilson: Prince Albert review - entertaining bio is a total treatSunday, 01 September 2019
Albertopolis! The Royal Albert Hall, the Albert Memorial and countless Albert Squares, Roads and Streets all commemorate Britain’s uncrowned... Read more... |
José Eduardo Agualusa: The Society of Reluctant Dreamers review - vivid visions towards a free AngolaSunday, 01 September 2019
Reality follows dreams in José Eduardo Agualusa’s latest experiment in quixotic political fable. The book opens with journalist Daniel Benchimol waking at the Rainbow Hotel in Angola’s capital,... Read more... |
Selina Todd: Tastes of Honey review – Salford dreams of freedomSunday, 25 August 2019
In the late 1950s, a photo technician from Salford suddenly became “the most famous teenager in Britain”. Shelagh Delaney was 19 when she sent the script of A Taste of Honey to the... Read more... |
Karl Marlantes: Deep River review - growing pains of a nation of immigrantsSunday, 25 August 2019
Karl Marlantes’s Deep River is an all-American novel. And why should it not be? Marlantes is an all-American... Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/...
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s ...
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of...
The first season of Blue Nights was so close to ...
Sabine Devieilhe, as with many other great sopranos, elicits much fan worship, with no less than three encores at her recent Wigmore Hall recital...
In A History of the World in 47 Borders, Jonn Elledge takes an ostensibly dry subject – how maps and boundaries have shaped our world –...
There’s a scene in Priscilla where Elvis stands above his wife, who is scrambling to put her clothes in a suitcase. Priscilla has just...
Billed as a “Viennese Whirl”, this programme showed that there are different kinds of music that may be known to the orchestral canon as coming...
What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided his best means of...
The previous solo piano solo album from Fred Hersch, one of the world’s great...