Books

MacDonald Gill’s poster for the Empire Marketing Board helped promote a nation at the height of its powers

John Self examines three varied, emotionally satisfying novels that together come in at less than the length of a single Mantel

László Földényi’s essays are a collection that will leave you feeling sharp and more cultured, says Tibor Fischer

There are still plenty of institutions worth mocking

Hart explains why we’re adapted to the environment we evolved in, rather than the one we inhabit

Ainsworth’s fate was sealed not how he wrote but what he placed at the heart of his stories

Stoddard Martin delves into a world beyond police and courtroom, with its own code of right and wrong, in Gerald Jacobs’s Pomeranski

A vivid retelling of an infamous constitutional crisis

The Long March draws together evidence that we half knew but shied away from

The older you are, the quicker you count out a minute