Professor Guy Leschziner writes that he was raised in a secular household that was ‘entirely irreligious’ yet with ‘a strong sense of morality, of right and wrong’. As an eminent neurologist and a rational atheist, it’s striking that his study of the extremes of human behaviour should reach for such Biblical terms. Is there an
There was a time when Elizabeth Strout’s fans had to wait a few years for the next book; but Tell Me Everything follows fast on her two previous novels – part of what she has termed a ‘marathon’ of writing in her sixties. It has been an extraordinary creative flowering: a diverting pleasure for admirers
The Go Galway bus from Dublin sounds an unlikely pleasure, but it is both comfortable and punctual. There is free Wi-Fi if you want it, but it would be criminal to do anything other than gawp at the view. Two and a half hours pass quickly when you are travelling at sunset, passing between rain
This is an extract from Spectator Life, available with next week’s issue of the Spectator: You adapted very well to life in London — were you concerned about how you might get on working in Hollywood? I was rather worried at first, but then I discovered I only had to go as far as Elstree
A fellow festival-goer at the recent Calabash literary festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, enjoyed chatting to a gentle Irish poet called Paul. He told her he ‘dabbled’ in poetry, and she was seconds from asking if he was planning on reading any of his work at the open-mike session. When Paul Muldoon, the poet in
Ahead of the Scottish referendum in September, and as the country prepares for the Commonwealth Games, Spectator Life caught up with a new generation of fine Scottish actors who seem destined for Hollywood, from Joanna Vanderham, star of The Paradise, to Laura Fraser of Breaking Bad and Richard Madden and Rose Leslie, who you may recognise
Ahead of the referendum in September, and as the country prepares for the Commonwealth Games, the spring issue of Spectator Life has a distinctly Scottish theme. In the spirit of Gerard Butler, Ewan McGregor, and James McAvoy, in what we affectionately term our ‘hot Scots’ feature, we put a spotlight on a new generation of
From Homeland to Game of Thrones and House of Cards, it’s an observation often made that we’re in a golden age of television. If there’s a TV renaissance afoot, and a renewed appreciation of what good writing, subtle character development and long form drama can achieve on a small screen, David Hare’s Johnny Worricker trilogy,
The late Anthony Minghella described our cover star, Ralph Fiennes, as a ‘held, slightly unknowable person’. Though I’ve long admired his work, I got to know him a little bit better when we met to talk about The Invisible Woman, his unforgettable account of Dickens’s secret life with his mistress Ellen Ternan. Fiennes both stars
From fashion to festivals, Life’s summer issue arrives with your Spectator this week. On our cover this time is the film star Diane Kruger — Helen in Troy, and a scene-stealer in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. A woman whose talent and sense of style I have long admired, when I met her in New York,
From a wedding to an awards ceremony, no self-respecting Los Angeles beano can take place without endless fixtures around the main event. The Oscars barely get a look in between a clutch of warm-ups and afterparties. The Friday night (Oscar night being Sunday) is traditionally the preserve of the agents, the most high-profile of whom
Robert Mapplethorpe: A Season in Hell Alison Jacques Gallery, 16-18 Berners Street, London W1, until 21 November Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1985 self-portrait with little devil’s horns is one of the most instantly recognisable self-portraits in modern photography. Short-haired and cherubically handsome, his face turns back to the camera, an inappropriately appealing daemon, complete with a ‘devil-be-damned’
That poetry is the “new rock ‘n’ roll” is an oft-uttered sentiment. But as its power to transport, provoke, console and seduce has been a constant for thousands of years now, I prefer to regard it as the old rock ‘n’ roll. The original, if you will… And it’s in this spirit that we’ve prepared
People who wouldn’t dream of having anything so trashy as Grazia on the coffee table, who claim not to be the slightest bit interested in the state of Brad and Angelina’s marriage, are often gripped by the seamy, rowdy lives of our poets and writers. They’re a source of glamour and gossip for more high-minded
‘Bathers at Asnières’ is a dreamily double-edged impressionist painting: an idyll as tricksy as the tiny dots, instead of brushstrokes, that Seurat used to paint. Young Parisian workers are stretched out like cats in the sun, or swimming in water so cool that you can almost feel it, and yet in the background the chimneys
Olivia Cole says that the row over Heathrow’s third runway has revealed that despite the credit crunch there is a resilient class of celebrities and toffs with expensive green tastes Do you remember Champagne Socialists? Well, there’s a new version of that old clique, with the same curious mix of self-importance and self-indulgence but with
Olivia Cole on Victoria Hislop’s second novel Married to a permanently well-lunched Englishman, Sonia Cameron, the half-Spanish heroine of Victoria Hislop’s second novel The Return, seeks escapism — first in a local dance class (to which she becomes unexpectedly addicted) and, more compellingly, in a chapter of her family history by which she becomes distracted
The conquering white male, guiltily plundering, seduced by exoticism and abundance but never quite sure that he’s not just the clueless foreigner being taken for a ride: so we have Tony Parson’s pugnacious hero Bill, clad in his designer suit. He is the ambitious corporate lawyer, billing for every hour he breathes, hoping to ‘make
Olivia Cole ‘Make somebody up’ was the instruction to the 23 contributors to Zadie Smith’s short-story anthology The Book of Other People, published to benefit the Brooklyn children’s writing charity, 826 NYC, founded by Dave Eggers. While that might seem about as radical a command as telling screenwriters to use dialogue, the only rule being
The Great Stinkby Clare ClarkPenguin, £12.99, pp. 358, ISBN 0670915300 The Second Life of Samuel Tyneby Esi EdugyanVirago, £10.99, pp. 278, ISBN 1844081060 The Icarus Girlby Helen OyeyemiBloomsbury, £16.99, pp. 320, ISBN 0747575487 With an aversion to ghost stories I was surprised to find myself greatly moved by Strangers. Like the author, Taichi Yamada, Haidi