As time goes by
There were many moments in Early Morning Riser that made me laugh out loud in recognition. An episode where the…
Haunted by the past
Mr Wilder & Me is not in any way a state- of-the-nation novel — and thank goodness. Brilliant as Jonathan…
Primal longing
Sophie Macintosh’s Blue Ticket is not classic feminist dystopia. Yes, it is concerned with legislated fertility, a world where women’s…
Middle-aged thrills
Beth, the protagonist of Joanna Briscoe’s The Seduction, reminded me of Clare in Tessa Hadley’s debut, Accidents in the Home.…
Gross receipts
Film-makers are increasingly turning to the violent, provocatively slow or viscerally repulsive.What is driving this rise in extreme cinema? asks Francesca Steele
An age-old problem
‘I’m getting rather tired of me,’ begins Jan Morris in one of the diary entries in Thinking Again, almost certainly…
Two wide-ranging collections of short stories by and about women
Zadie Smith’s first collection of short stories shows that she can pack all the astute social commentary of her novels…
A novel take on the Western: Inland, by Téa Obreht, reviewed
Téa Obreht’s second novel is an expansive and ambitious subversion of Western tropes, set in fin de siècle America. We…
The death of cosy Christie
This is not Midsomer Murders. The new film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is thick with…
Good clean fun
I once forced some pals on a skiing holiday to spend an afternoon off the slopes watching Chalet Girl. Suffice…
Fashion faux pas
‘I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking,’ said a pouty Derek Zoolander…
High and mighty
‘Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side,’ sang Miley Cyrus. ‘It’s the climb.’ She’s not usually a musician to…
Twenty/forty vision
Every time I sit down to a Noah Baumbach film I think I’m going to hate it, but I never…
How J-Lo can you go?
Stateside critics, who panned Jennifer Lopez’s new film The Boy Next Door on its US release last month, may be…
The son also rises
Francesca Steele talks to Ferdinand Kingsley about his family and his future
Home viewing
Venice may be the oldest film festival in the world but it is still breaking new ground. This week film-lovers…
Voyeurs all
Standing enthusiastically by as a naked man writhes in agony might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But this is…
