sun 29/06/2025

book reviews and features

Danny Goldberg: In Search of the Lost Chord review - 1967 well remembered

Liz Thomson

I was 10 in 1967 though I remember much about the year, indeed about the era, not least the release of Sgt Pepper and the first live global satellite broadcast, when the...

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Eureka: novelist Anthony Quinn on completing his acclaimed trilogy

Anthony Quinn

I am intrigued by those writers who plan their novels with the bristling rigour of a military strategist,...

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Jonathan Miles: St Petersburg review - culture and calamity

Marina Vaizey

Talk about survival: St Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, now again St Petersburg, all the same...

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Chris Patten: First Confession - A Sort of Memoir review - remembrances of government and power

Liz Thomson

It’s 25 years since Chris Patten lost his seat as Conservative MP for Bath. The 1992 election was called by...

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Brenda Maddox: Reading the Rocks review - revelations of geology

Marina Vaizey

Reading the Rocks has a provocative subtitle, “How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life”, indicating the role of...

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John Man: Amazons review - the real warrior women of the ancient world

mark Kidel

As Wonder Woman hits screens worldwide, the publication of a book that explores the myth and...

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David Sedaris: Theft By Finding review - comic literary talent of historic value

Matthew Wright

In a voice of distinctive, high-pitched nasal whimsy, comic essayist and memoirist David Sedaris finds humour with the precision of a mosquito after blood. British...

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Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground

Boyd Tonkin

Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east...

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Elif Batuman: The Idiot review - memories of student life and travels meander

Marina Vaizey

University, anyone? Student days? If you were ever an undergraduate, who does not remember the simultaneous sense of dislocation and excitement, the feeling of the familiar combined with a heady...

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Peter Ackroyd: Queer City - London's gay life over two millennia

Tom Birchenough

2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we...

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latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind

Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May after pre-release play...

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Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is...

Alfred Brendel 1931-2025 - a personal tribute

Alfred Brendel’s death earlier this month came as a shock, but it wasn’t unexpected. His health had gradually deteriorated over the last year or...

Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs...

Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the punk parody...

Album: Lorde - Virgin

Lorde’s trajectory is continually fascinating. From the minimalist, sparse electropop of Pure Heroine to the similar but more grandiose...

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