England, tutted fifteenth-century Frenchmen, is where they kill their kings. Though the comment’s smug self-satisfaction seems a little at odds with the bloody factionalism and civil war that tore ...

Why is it, when Islamism has damaged the image of Islam so comprehensively, that the faith seems to retain a huge popularity? This paradox of a popular ugliness torments the politics of Europe, India ...

“The whorehouse of thought” is how Claude Vignon, a journalist in Balzac’s Lost Illusions (1837–43), describes newspapers. Vignon shares his contempt for the industry which employs him with the ...

Ahead of next year’s centenary of The Great Gatsby, the inevitable revisiting of Fitzgerald gets under way. Two new biographies offer different approaches. Arthur Krystal’s Some Unfinished Chaos: The ...

After an exchange with Brian Vickers relating to disputed questions of dramatic collaboration I had researched with Laurie Maguire and aired in the TLS (April 20, 2012, and following), I received a ...

James Rebanks, the Lake District shepherd turned bestselling author, made his name writing about the rhythms and realities of ...