Moscow Year Zero
A detailed study of Moscow in the year that Stalin’s purges got into full swing is, writes one reviewer, an almost impossibly rich masterpiece.
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Gentleman At Arms
Evelyn Waugh writes to his friend Dorothy Lygon about his wartime adventures and work on what was to become Brideshead Revisited.
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European Anti-Semitism
American novelist and short story writer Cynthia Ozick claims to find an ineradicable anti-Semitism at work in Europe. But her definition of the phenomenon may not be the same as yours or mine.
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The Sine Qua Non of Civilisation
Fifty years ago four New York friends met for dinner and came up with a project which was to leave a lasting mark on American intellectual life.
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The Impossible Bookshop
There are two ways of looking at it: bookshops are about atmosphere, character, associations, romance; or they are about books. If we go for the former we soon won’t have any bookshops.
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Who will own ebooks?
A dispute between France and Luxembourg and the European Commission seems to have implications for the question of whether individual European companies will be able to thrive in the electronic book market or if it will be a case of (American) winner takes all.
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The Great Pilgrim Hat Mirror Scam
If Johann Gutenberg’s first money-making wheeze had gone just a little differently he might not have bothered inventing printing.
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This Is Not About Me
Why do novelists write novels about novelists? Maylis Besserie presents the thoughts of an elderly gentleman from another generation, someone removed from her by era, gender and nationality, and thus asserts, in defiance of current orthodoxy, the independence of artistic creation.
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Derek Mahon, the poet
Although Mahon was the last poet one would accuse of naivety, he was attracted to an ideal of simplicity, writes Magdalena Kay. This correlates with a tacit conviction that feelings of insignificance can bring on ecstasy: ‘Such tiny houses, such enormous skies!’
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Derek Mahon: 1941-2020
Derek’s was a life characterised by a certain turbulence, dedication to his craft, a disputatious impulse and an inner reserve sometimes bordering on the stand-offish. But when the mood took him he was uproarious company.