Biography
Walter Bagehot: the revered Victorian who got almost everything wrong
Bagehot: The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian by James Grant reviewed
Does Kim Jong-un deliberately emulate a Bond villain?
The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong-un by Anna Fifield reviewed
My fictional Abimael Guzmán turned out to be eerily accurate
The Shining Path: Love, Madness and Revolution in the Andes by Orin Starn and Miguel La Serna reviewed
Where were you when you read John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima’?
Mr Straight Arrow: The Career of John Hersey, Author of Hiroshima by Jeremy Treglown reviewed
God save us from Søren Kierkegaard
Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard by Clare Carlisle reviewed
The Lady with the Limp: homage to the one-legged Virginia Hall, SOE’s ‘most dangerous’ agent
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell reviewed
Robert A. Heinlein: the ‘giant of SF’ was sexist, racist — and certainly no stylist
The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn reviewed
The best way to defeat totalitarianism? Treat it as a joke
Teffi: A Life of Letters and of Laughter by Edythe Haber reviewed
How Calouste Gulbenkian became the richest man in the world
Mr Five Per Cent: The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, the World’s Richest Man by Jonathan Conlin reviewed
Elizabeth II: Queen of tact and diplomacy
Queen of the World: Elizabeth II: Sovereign and Stateswoman by Robert Hardman reviewed
Edward Gorey: master of the macabre
Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery reviewed
Saul Bellow: love the work, if not the man
The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965–2005 by Zachary Leader reviewed
Germaine Greer continues to shock and awe
Germaine: The Life of Germaine Greer by Elizabeth Kleinhenz reviewed
Gandhi on Hitler: ‘I do not believe him to be as bad as he is portrayed’
Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World: 1914–1948 by Ramachandra Guha reviewed
The old man and his muse: Hemingway’s toe-curling infatuation with Adriana Ivancich
Autumn in Venice: Ernest Hemingway and His Last Muse reviewed
The electrifying genius of Nikola Tesla
Richard Munson’s ‘Tesla: Inventor of the Modern’ emphasises the duality of his subject.
The Wallis Simpson I knew – by Nicky Haslam
One would have thought this particular can of worms might, after nearly 80 years, be well past its sell-by date.…
What America needs is another Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt isn’t as popular as he once was. When Barack Obama won the 2008 election, he let it…
