The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Peter Hoskin wrote the Bookends column for the latest issue of the Spectator. Here it is for readers of the blog: Did you know they once burned comic books? And in America, no less. In schoolyards. It was shortly after the end of the second world war, and legislators and parents were all shook up
‘But perhaps there was an answer, using a kind of extreme logic. My direction as a writer changed after Mary’s death, and many readers thought that I became far darker. But I like to think I was much more radical, in a desperate attempt to prove that black was white, that two and two made
The annual BibleTech Conference – where bible study enters the cyber cafe – is to be held in Seattle this March. In between consultations about the latest Bible apps, one wonders how much attention will be paid to the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible. Steadily, Anglicans have put aside the King
Sad news. Charlie Louvin has died. Here’s his New York Times obituary. And here he is with his brother Ira reminding us just why these Alabama boys were one of the great double acts in the history of American music.
Ian McEwan is in hot water with some of his lesser known fellows. A group of self-styled ‘pro-Palestinian authors’ wrote to the Guardian on Monday, and expressed their regret that McEwan will accept the biennial Jerusalem Prize. They averred that the prize, which is awarded to those who explore the theme of individual freedom in
If you are new to Ruskin, this volume from Penguin’s ‘Great Ideas’ series is the perfect place to begin. It contains two self-contained essays, ‘The Nature of Gothic’ (from The Stones of Venice) and ‘The Work of Iron’ (a lecture he delivered at Tunbridge Wells in 1858). The two essays are short enough to be
At last, Derek Walcott has won the T S. Eliot Prize for poetry. Walcott’s latest collection, White Egrets, was described by chairman of the judges, Anne Stevenson, as a “moving, risk-taking and technically flawless book by a great poet; in the best traditions of the Eliot Prize.” Walcott overcame some renowned competition – including his
Some intriguing literary whispers did the rounds yesterday. Both the Telegraph and the Observer carried the story of Anne Robinson’s imminent leap from quiz-master to literary chat-shown host. And today confirmation of such an unlikely move was confirmed by the BBC: My Life In Books, a new daily show hosted by the queen of mean
The New York Times’ Janet Maslin reviews Frank Brady’s review of Chess playing wild child Bobby Fischer. ‘It’s no exaggeration to call Bobby Fischer both one of the most admired and one of the most reviled figures in American history. The admiration is prompted by his precocious rise to the pinnacle of the chess-playing world
It’s time to heed the complaints and free art schools from the constraints of the university system, says Niru Ratnam The Turner Prize award ceremony always attracts protest — usually in the shape of the Stuckists, a group of bedraggled, eccentric-looking artists who gather outside Tate Britain in funny hats and bemoan the death of
There’s a sad lack of Gram Parsons footage on Youtube. And what there is isn’t of the greatest visual or audio quality. But we must make do with what we have and so here it is, the Streets of Baltimore in glorious black and white and filled with that old-time feeling… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjsL1OTHv7U
An elderly gentleman prodding me in the face with his inflatable iguana might expect to command my full attention. As I found my seat in the Albert Hall, though, the gentleman in question had to turn away disheartened, as I was too busy taking in the spectacular set of Cirque du Soleil’s Totem to be
I have long believed that a part of you dies in winter and doesn’t come back to life until you feel the sun on your face and a mid-westerly breeze in the air. I have long believed that a part of you dies in winter and doesn’t come back to life until you feel the
I have always suspected that, if you look for the black swan within yourself, it will end in tears, and now Darren Aronofsky has proved me right. It will end in tears, as well as bloody gashes, horrors glimpsed in mirrors, warped hallucinations of a sexual nature and breaking your mother’s hand in a door
Gently does it. The Fitzrovia Radio Hour takes us back to the droll and elegant world of light entertainment in the 1940s when the airwaves were full of racy detective shows and overheated melodramas about pushy Yorkshiremen and rogue Nazis. The show is set in a radio studio during a live performance and we watch
Ballet is a dying art, according to Jennifer Homans’s bestselling history of ballet, Apollo’s Angels. Ballet is a dying art, according to Jennifer Homans’s bestselling history of ballet, Apollo’s Angels. Sensationalist as it may sound, this claim is cogently argued at the end of the book, which turns dreary ballet history into an engaging narrative.
It’s sometimes intriguing to speculate, as you go to an opera in a fringe production of one kind or another, about how much messing around (used neutrally) this or that popular work can take. It’s sometimes intriguing to speculate, as you go to an opera in a fringe production of one kind or another, about
A frock that shocks, a terror-filled red coat and diamonds of seductive power are all promised next week in an alluring late-night series on Radio 3 (produced by Duncan Minshull). Listener, They Wore It gives us five 15-minute essays about clothes. Not a subject I would normally bother with, never being someone noted for my
Horizon (BBC2, Monday) asked, ‘What is reality?’ and didn’t really have an answer. Horizon (BBC2, Monday) asked, ‘What is reality?’ and didn’t really have an answer. Well, it seems nobody does, though plenty of physicists, mathematicians and astronomers are working on it. As the voiceover told us, ‘Once you have entered their reality, your reality
Shadow Catchers is an effective title, with its magical and occult associations, and a nice echo of body snatchers into the bargain. Shadow Catchers is an effective title, with its magical and occult associations, and a nice echo of body snatchers into the bargain. The exhibition (sponsored by Barclays Wealth) it labels is less impressive:
Some years ago I went to a dinner party in Lucknow, capital of India’s Uttar Pradesh, where the hosts and their guests were Hindus who as children had fled Lahore in 1947 at the time of Partition. A week later I was in Lahore, capital of Pakistan’s Punjab, and found myself in a house where
The Ottoman Empire inspired great travel books as well as great architects. Travellers like George Sandys, Richard Pococke or the Chevalier d’Arvieux in the 17th and 18th centuries were curious, erudite and less arrogant than their 19th-century successors. The Ottoman Empire inspired great travel books as well as great architects. Travellers like George Sandys, Richard
Born in Japan, growing up in America in the Sixties, Yoko Kawaguchi was perplexed by the persistence of what she felt to be an anachronistic image of Japanese culture: the geisha. ‘That mincing, simpering personification of female subservience to the male infuriated me,’ she writes in the introduction to Butterfly’s Sisters. Her book explores the
If this novel is ever published with a scratch-and-sniff cover — which incidentally, I think it might be successful enough to warrant — this is what it would smell of: cheap petrol, lust, the ripe, acidic scent of decaying corpse, cat litter, $2,000 suits, Cristal champagne, decaying encyclopaedia, corruption, fumes from the power plant, betrayal,
Writing an autobiographical account of middle age is a brave undertaking, necessitating a great deal of self-scrutiny at a time of life when most of us would sooner look the other way and hope for the best. Jane Shilling took up riding relatively late (she even joined a hunt, as described in her book The
As his battered bomber hurtled towards the Pacific in May 1943, Louis Zamperini thought to himself that no one was going to survive the crash. If he had had the slightest inkling of what lay ahead of him, he readily admits that he might have preferred death, staying beneath the surface of the water rather
One of Allan Metcalf’s contentions in OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word is that the two letters have become America’s philosophy: ‘we don’t insist that everything be perfect; OK is good enough’. One of Allan Metcalf’s contentions in OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word is that the two letters have become
Mark Mason has written the Bookends column in this week’s issue of the Spectator. Here it is as an exclusive for this blog. One of Allan Metcalf’s contentions in OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word is that the two letters have become America’s philosophy: ‘we don’t insist that everything be perfect; OK is
It was the literary equivalent of Gordon Brown’s Arctic Monkeys moment. Disgraced American politician Michael Steele was asked to name his favourite book. ‘War and Peace,’ he said, aghast that anyone could have imagined anything else. He then illustrated his mastery of Tolstoy with the following quotation: ‘It was the best of times and the