James Walton

Strange bedfellows: Charles Dickens and the popstar Prince

Nick Hornby yokes the two in an enjoyable jeu d’esprit – but, apart from troubled childhoods and prodigious energy, the thing they really share is Hornby’s admiration

By his death, Charles Dickens had written four million words of fiction, decades’ worth of journalism and more than 14,000 letters. In his spare time he walked 12 miles a day. [Getty Images]
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  • Dickens and Prince: A Particular Kind of Genius

    Nick Hornby

    Viking, pp. 112, £9

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Stephen Daisley

The International Criminal Court must fall

The arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant should be the last the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues. The ICC accuses the men, whose nation is embroiled in a multi-front war against enemies sworn to its destruction, of using ‘starvation as a method of warfare’, ‘murder, persecution and

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