Writing
Writing lives
The life story of the biography, from Victorian glorification to Bloomsbury boldness to contemporary obliquity
Tom Stoppard’s Hampstead drama
Best not try to memorise this deceptive Connect Four of relationships — just get into the flow
The unromantic truth about tortured poets
Taylor Swift is idealising the grim realities of the lives of poets
Who edits the editor?
The bright young things of publishing want to be involved in every line of every new book
Not everyone has a novel in them
Literature is the only art in which, it seems, every neophyte is convinced they can succeed
Excessive expectations
On writers and mental health
Writing the world to rights (w/ Jo Bartosch)
Making a difference from your desk
AI and the disintegrating imagination
ChatGTP will change our relationship with writing
Dedication’s what you need
Down with the gratitude-bloat of authors’ endless lists of acknowledgements
A literary pilgrimage to a watery grave
Following in the footsteps of the author J.G. Farrell
Sausage to fortune
Vague promises might haunt Starmer more than an embarrassing gaffe
Landscapes of allusion and illusion
On the architecture of recreation
What do Labour think a conversion therapy is?
There has to be a middle ground between complete denial and complete affirmation
The age of reason, sliced and diced
No historian wields Ockham’s razor more effectively than J.C.D. Clark
The future that never came
Post-war London was saved from a modernist masterplan
Blue-collar brilliance
1970s Pittsburgh wasn’t just a steel town: it was the steel town
French lessons
Macron’s centrist coalition has not only led the country to paralysis, but is itself threatened with implosion
The futility of safeguards for assisted suicide
Lessons from Belgium and the Netherlands
Subscribe to save the BBC
A radical new solution to the problem of the BBC’s outmoded licence fee that could ensure more high-quality programming
Let’s diversify the curriculum
If we really want diversity, we need to get more traditional
The WASPI women should blame themselves
No injustice has been done to them
