Books
The renewal of Englishness
Journalist Jason Cowley builds a national identity from an excavation of incidents
And never the twain shall meet?
A lineup of new books tackle the thorny China problem
Weeds in the garden
A brilliant new work walks the thorny path of motherhood
Unearthly study of life and death
Yukio Mishima concealed his poignant political commentary in a run-of-the-mill science fiction novel
A bird-lover’s lament
Patrick Galbraith’s debut offers a quirkily enjoyable journey through a netherworldly Britain
Grace in the face of prejudice
Gwendolyn Brooks’s Maud Martha has been published in Britain for the first time
Why we need a new movement
The timid world of BritLit needs to be shaken up by a mutinous new clique of writers
Raw and immersive tale of the Civil War
The siege of Basing House encompasses all of England in microcosm
Reinvention and rediscoveries
An actress turned author, a Kafkaesque fantasy and a 1960s re-release stir the imagination
Murders for June
Classic settings conceal psychological rawness and sinuously convoluted mysteries
Most Read
Labour’s mercurial kingmaker
The eventful career of Josh Simons, the man who gave up his seat for Andy Burnham
In defence of Lara Bird
There is nothing weird or dishonest about having a dual existence
The hitch with the Hitch
How Christopher Hitchens brought me back to Christ
The ties that bind
A revived society tie has raised thousands for hedgehogs — and reminds us what Britain has lost with the decline of the club tie
Against Northernism
“Northernism” is a superficial form of cultural branding, not a serious political project
The enduring fascination of Richard Nixon
Why America’s most contradictory president still exerts a strange grip on the political imagination.
The costs of independence
Northern Ireland offers sobering lessons on the consequences of devolutionary radicalism
Our money, abroad
If Whitehall can’t stop taxpayers’ money reaching terrorists, it should stop sending it abroad
Pärtly good
Arvo Pärt: 4 symphonies (Chandos)
The old age elephant in the room
Does Andy Burnham seriously think that he can fix social care?
One deuce of a decider
This is it, when you look into the abyss and the abyss looks back into you
Strange new world
A new art history hinges on a proleptic reading of Edwardian history
Herodotus and the birth of enquiry
Before there were historians, there was Herodotus — a wandering Greek determined to discover why civilisations rise and fall
Taxing the lights on
Miliband’s new levy undermines the very investment needed to bring energy prices down
“Treatment” does not make child predators safe
People who abuse children must be kept away from children
Worstall’s Corollary
Rare earths expose a fatal flaw at the heart of industrial strategy: governments intervene in systems they do not remotely understand