Oxford publishes, or has published, a number of anthologies of anecdotes relating to various professions. There is a very enjoyable one of military anecdotes, edited by Max Hastings, Elizabeth Longford’s of royal anecdotes (competing in a crowded field), and Paul Johnson’s of political anecdotes. Some professions more readily generate anecdotes than others. I could imagine
Listing page content here Vae victis, the Roman warning to the defeated, was probably more threatening than sympathetic. Ever after they themselves had been subjugated — forced, literally, to bow their heads under the Samnite yoke — they made a habit of ruthless winning. The defeated could expect slavery and pillage. After June 1940, both
Listing page content here Women in peril flit through the pages of traditional Gothic fiction, murmuring ‘Had I but known!’ as they fall for the wrong man, open the wrong door or apply for the wrong job. The poet Sophie Hannah takes the trusty formula in both hands, gives it a vigorous shake and uses
The poet and storyteller George Mackay Brown was the son of the postman at Stromness, Orkney. His father John had also been an apprentice tailor before becoming the postman. George, in one of his poems, speaks of how ‘not wisdom or wealth can redeem/The green coat, childhood’. In his knowledge of every cranny of the
‘Eakins errs just a little — a little — in the direction of the flesh,’ Walt Whitman observed in the late 1880s. Ideally he would have had the Frenchman Millet do his portrait, but the painter of humble peasants was already dead. Eakins made him a flushed old soul in jovial mood. Sidney Kirkpatrick’s account
Listing page content here Hunting is cool. Ten years ago no one in her right mind would have dreamed of writing a novel about hunting, but now Candida Clark has done exactly that. Just as George Bush’s ‘war of terror’ gave a huge boost to al-Q’aeda, so Labour’s attempt to impose a ban has actually
There was nothing that a Roman general relished more than the chance to raise an earthwork. ‘Dig for victory’ was an injunction that legionaries often followed with a literal cussedness. Advancing into enemy territory, they carried shovels as well as spears. The camp that a legion would build after every day’s march, always identical to
Why are we so interested in biographies of the old film stars? I don’t think our children will be. I can’t see them reading 550 pages, the length of this book, about the lives of far better actors like George Clooney or Gwyneth Paltrow. But then we don’t see the stars as actors. For that
Listing page content here Non-fiction: Rosebery by Leo McKinstry, John Murray, £10.99 Elizabeth The Queen Mother by Hugo Vickers, Arrow, £9.99 The Vote by Paul Foot, Penguin, £9.99 1599 by James Shapiro, Faber, £8.99 The Wreckers by Bella Bathurst, HarperPerennial, £8.99 Father Joe by Tony Hendra, Penguin, £8.99 The Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna, Penguin,
Should the state take action against people who have done nothing wrong, if there are plausible grounds for thinking that they are about to? Suppose, says Alan Dershowitz, that reliable intelligence shows that a large-scale terrorist attack is about to happen. Should the law allow the police to round up whole categories of potential perpetrators
