Books
The long shadow of the Great Helmsman
Frank Dikötter’s China is perpetually over-leveraged, over-producing and overdue a bust
A grand old Duke
The Duke of Kent’s life has been little-known — until now
First find your clique …
Whatever one’s attachment to noble causes, it’s more fun to write for the right-wing press
A thoughtful old-fashioned rambler
George Orwell’s gardening prowess comes as a surprise
Dissection of a doomed doctrine
By 2016, the once hegemonic neoliberal order came apart
Interesting times
The problem with low interest rates
Not necessarily the end of the world
The biggest existential threat to humans is now humanity
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
No country for old men
Publishers get rid of talented editors whose worn faces don’t fit their youth-focused world
Free speech in free fall
As British freedoms are continually eroded, much of the liberty lobby seems to have nothing to say
Grimdull
The fantasy genre is afflicted by a dull and tedious obsession with adolescent cynicism, prurient scenes and one dimensional anti-heroes
With their pants down
The Conservatives are in a nightmare they cannot wake up from
Brussels, capital city of Surrealism
In Brussels, Surrealism lurks in the most unexpected places
In defence of British theological education
Critics should be more optimistic about the new generation of ordinands
Fire and ice
Klopp is the air-punching booming-laugh extrovert; Guardiola the turtleneck-wearing, obsessively professorial introvert
A “lost” novel better left unfound
We’re a long way from touchstones One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera
The emptiness of hype
A cultural legacy depends on far more than passing enthusiasm
Is public health a protected belief?
A new case will decide if prohibitionism in the name of public health constitutes a philosophical belief under the Equality Act
The stench of Chanel No 5
Set mainly in Nazi-occupied Paris, The New Look tells the story of Coco Chanel and Christian Dior
Snook dazzles as Dorian Gray
Wilde’s preoccupation with beauty and artifice brings a sassy Victorian immorality tale into our own times
