Reviews
World-class snob, first-class diarist
Andrew Roberts says that in these diaries, Channon takes snobbery to a truly pathological level
Rehabilitation of a great stylist
Christopher Bray thinks Roth’s “novelist’s autobiography” is one of his most fizzing examinations of the stories that construct our various selves
Ravel, Dutilleux, Debussy: Quart de nuit (Deux-Elles)
Norman Lebrecht is left wanting more Dutilleux
An essential record
Norman Lebrecht reviews Shostakovich: Violin concertos 1&2, performed by Alina Ibragimova and the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia
To the streets, via the Crush Bar
Robert Thicknesse on Opera
Rave that runs out of puff
Summertime and the streaming is easy, but Netflix’s White Lines leaves Adam LeBor cold
Masterful tombstone for a tudor bruiser
Hannah Betts reviews The Mirror & The Light by Hilary Mantel
A puritan but not a fanatic
Simon Heffer reviews Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate by Paul Lay
The poet and the patrician
Stephen Parkinson reviews The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F Buckley Jr, and the debate over race in America, by Nicholas Buccola
War-war not jaw-jaw
Robert Hutton reviews Our Man in New York by Henry Hemming
Israel, the ICJ and the plausibility of genocide
Commentators are misunderstanding the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice
Why young men like Donald Trump
He cuts through the sterility and severity of modern life
The decline of industry
English towns faced unique new challenges following deindustrialisation
Tough women take on the bad guys
When it comes to spy dramas and domestic angst, less is very definitely more
A book about nothing
A new collection from Adrian Chiles is certainly curious
The age of reason, sliced and diced
No historian wields Ockham’s razor more effectively than J.C.D. Clark
Two cheers for Trump on free speech
The President-elect cannot just protect speech that he likes
It’s the economy, stupid
The US election was another reminder of people’s biggest political priority
A matter of life and death
It is not the job of judges to tell someone that they are wrong for believing in life
The reality of assisted dying, an open letter
A plea to MPs to vote against this dangerous law
Chill message of Booker shortlist
The contempt of publishers for middle-class life and values is diminishing the novel
