No laughing matter: The Material, by Camille Bordas, reviewed
A graduate course at the University of Chicago teaches stand-up to a group of aspiring young comedians. But the more you analyse humour, the less funny it becomes
Dangerous liaisons
In an atmosphere of languid torpor on a French family estate, an unfortunate relationship develops between a son, a father and a mother-in-law
Is this the end of travel writing?
Viv Groskop shares Sara Wheeler’s fears that modern sensibilities are fatally threatening a centuries-old genre
Learning from the Russians
Viv Groskop takes a masterclass in the art of the short story
Searching in vain for the ‘soul’ of modern Russia
It would be hard to have better travel-writer credentials than Sara Wheeler. Here the author of The Magnetic North and…
A hymn to self-loathing: Tibor Fischer’s How to Rule the World reviewed
Tibor Fischer has a track record with humour. His first novel, the Booker shortlisted Under the Frog, takes its title…
Broken dreams
As Masha Gessen herself admits — and as friends and journalist colleagues repeatedly told her — it was a strange…
Made in Chelski
It’s surprising there haven’t been more novels drawing on London’s fascination with Russian oligarchs. But how to write about them…
A James Bond thriller for real
Ahead of last year’s release of The Interview, the Seth Rogen film about two journalists instructed to assassinate Kim Jong-un,…
Travels in Nowhere Land
Transnistria is not an area well-served by travel literature or, really, literature of any kind. The insubstantial-seeming post-Soviet sandwich-filling between…
