More from Books
A macabre quest for immortality: Old Soul, by Susan Barker, reviewed
In a bid to prolong her life indefinitely, a female serial killer preys on lonely individuals, leaving their organs mysteriously rearranged
The pioneering women of modern dance
Through the lives of nine 20th-century performers, beginning with Isadora Duncan, Sara Veale traces the move away from conventional ballet to a bold new philosophy of dance
Finding your other half in ancient Athens
According to Aristophanes, human beings were two-bodied before Zeus split them – which is why we spend our lives perpetually searching for our missing partner
The psychological toll of being constantly tracked and harassed
With smartphones providing hitherto undreamt of opportunities for spying, human rights workers and investigative journalists are left struggling for breath
The crude tirades of Cicero the demagogue
Far from being a crusader for virtue, the Roman statesman is seen as a violent firebrand, disregarding the law when it suited him and laying the groundwork for Julius Caesar’s assassination
Never underestimate the complexities of African history
Too many commentators, Luke Pepera included, extrapolate from one region they know well to a continent boasting a multitude of religions, languages and ethnic roots
The secret of Gary Lineker’s success
The Leicester-born striker was neither exceptionally skilful nor assiduous; but he worked out how to score goals, and later excel in broadcasting, through intelligence and calm resilience
The splatter of green and yellow that caused uproar in the Victorian art world
A double biography of John Ruskin and James Whistler describes in detail the notorious feud between the prominent critic and the flamboyant post-Impressionist
The self-serving delusions of the ‘Swastika Kaiser’
With the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II decided he was best off allying himself with the Nazis, and seeing what he could obtain for his family in the process
Why do we assume smell is our weakest sense?
When it comes to the power of association, smell is unmatched, says Jonas Olofsson. It can take us back to childhood in an instant
The ghost of his father haunts Winston Churchill
In a whimsical piece written by Churchill in 1947, Lord Randolph’s ethereal figure appears in the studio at Chartwell – to muse on the possibility of a political career for his son
A painful homecoming: The Visitor, by Maeve Brennan, reviewed
Returning to the family house in Dublin after the death of her mother in Paris, 22-year-old Anastasia expects a warm welcome – only to be steadily spurned by her embittered grandmother
This other Eden: Adam and Eve in Paradise, by Eça de Queirós, reviewed
Published in 1897, Queiros’s novella revisits Christianity’s first man and woman, departing from the Creation story in ways both playful and profound
We are all people of faith, whether we realise it or not
Reason, narrowly framed, will never reveal the world to us. A better path involves reason harnessed to our ethical and aesthetic impulses, argues Alister McGrath
The beauty and tedium of the works of Adalbert Stifter
The 19th-century Austrian was an astonishingly pure stylist, as W.G. Sebald acknowledges – but it takes real dedication to craft to write such boring novels
The awful calamity of Stalin being a music lover
The dictator obsessed over new recordings and was a frequent visitor to the Bolshoi; but he treated even the greatest musicians arbitrarily, consigning many to the Gulag for no reason
The next best thing to visiting a really clever friend in New York
Vivian Gornick’s memoir of life in the city in the 1960s and 1970s is rich in anecdote and dialogues with waspish friends and neighbours
Time is running out to tackle the dangers posed by AI
While we can all appreciate the benefits of AI, it is developing faster than anyone imagined, with no consensus on what constitutes acceptable risk
The golden days of Greenwich Village
David Browne celebrates the vitality of the Village in its 1960s heyday, when clubs were subterranean crucibles where jazz, folk, blues and poetry swirled in a potent brew
The horror of Hungary in the second world war
Having suffered heavy casualties fighting the Soviets as part of the Axis alliance, the country was then occupied by the Nazis, which led to wholesale carnage during the siege of Budapest in 1945
A mole in the CIA: The Seventh Floor, by David McCloskey, reviewed
McCloskey’s latest thriller is well written and tautly paced, but we feel so little connection with the suspect agents that the eventual unmasking of the mole is an anticlimax
Bad vibrations: Lazarus Man, by Richard Price, reviewed
Shudderings from a subway extension in Harlem causes a tenement building to collapse, killing six people and leading to many missing in this cinematic thriller
Alexander Pushkin – Russia’s greatest letter-writer
Intimate, earthy and uninhibited, Pushkin’s letters, collected together, read like a novel and give an encyclopaedic view of 19th-century Russian life
The unfulfilled life: Ask Me Again, by Clare Sestanovich, reviewed
Our aimless young heroine struggles to find herself in New York, Washington and Los Angeles – but even the novel’s inconclusiveness is compelling
Norman Lewis – a restless adventurer with a passion for broken-down places
John Hatt’s latest selection of the travel writer’s journalism includes articles on Castro’s Havana, the Yemen of the Imams, Batista’s Cuba, French Indo-China and Neapolitan men of honour
