Knocking at the door of the Booker Prize
From an old-fashioned tale to a new-fashioned one, with a dash of dystopia
Plenty of atmosphere –– but only one ha-ha
If you want spice without obscurity, or the 1990s unfiltered, why not read something written back then?
Words and music
The bookish thrill of recognising the literary references of the pop artists you love
Snaps, crackles and Pop Art
Things you didn’t know you were interested in — until someone wrote a good book about them
Pains and pleasures of anticipation
The best sort of debut isn’t actually the author’s first book
Bret Easton Ellis — the enfant terrible who finally grew up
How he at last lived up to his promise
Secret sex lives in Victorian England
Prepare to fall in like with three new books
Standing tall on an uncluttered horizon
The best new fiction of 2022
Swansongs and southern discomfort
Three new novels plough the furrow between popular and literary fiction
Head boy and head-scratchers
Come autumn, competing literary establishments parade their best
Britain will not be a “Christian country” without Christians
Traditions die if there is no one to cherish them
Water matters
British towns were built on rivers in more than one sense
The joy of pets
Pet ownership is one of life’s simple pleasures, but it also lifts the soul
The future is blue
With Corbynite leadership and conservative members, Unite embodies Labour’s identity crisis
Liz Truss was right but naive
She grasped the scale of Britain’s plight but misunderstood the nature of power
All smoke and no fire
An Impact Assessment on prohibiting cigarettes is unconvincing
Fire and ice
Klopp is the air-punching booming-laugh extrovert; Guardiola the turtleneck-wearing, obsessively professorial introvert
Sweet magic in Hokkaido
Sushi for breakfast, crisps for dessert and delicious chocolate
Kilkenny’s golden age
A fascinating exploration of Irish history could have been better and more comprehensively illustrated
Hero of the hour
Giles Watling asked the question that was on nobody’s lips, as he rushed to the Prime Minister’s rescue
The Church of England has failed on gender
To pursue kindness at the expense of truth is self-defeating
