Bristling with meaning: the language of hair in 19th-century America
Beards, moustaches, whiskers, free-flowing curls or cropped coifs – all were signifiers of morality, trustworthiness or political ideology
‘Sitting the 11-plus was the most momentous event of my life’ – Geoff Dyer
‘Everything else that has happened couldn’t have happened were it not for that’, says Dyer, in a funny, moving account of growing up in postwar England
What did John Lennon, Jacques Cousteau, Simon Wiesenthal and Freddie Mercury have in common?
They were all stamp collectors, and feature among Robert Irwin’s oddball fraternity caught up in a collecting mania spanning centuries
In search of Pico della Mirandola, the quintessential Renaissance Man
Though the scholar himself remains an enigma, his theories about language as a portal to the divine are explored in depth by Edward Wilson-Lee
The plain-speaking bloke from Warrington who painted only for himself
Born in 1932, Eric Tucker created his art not for exhibition or in pursuit of fame but simply because he felt compelled to do so
From tragedy to mockery: Munichs, by David Peace, reviewed
The devastating crash at Munich-Riem airport in 1959 haunts Manchester United fans to this day. Peace defies anyone to read his novel and use ‘Munichs’ as an insult ever again
David Baddiel’s father and mother must be the most talked about parents in Britain
Colin the Dinky Toys dealer, familiar from Baddiel’s TV documentaries, emerges from this memoir as a relentless bully, but at least the ‘fantasist’ Sarah provides suitably funny anecdotes
The endless fascination of volcanoes
Tamsin Mather is the latest highly articulate volcanologist to combine vivid personal experience with thoughtful scientific explanation
Living in the golden age of navel-gazing
Every other book now seems to be a collection of sad, wry, funny reflections by some sad, wry, funny columnist – and Joel Golby’s Four Stars is among the best
Conning the booktrade connoisseurs
Fuelled by loathing and resentment, Thomas James Wise set about defrauding as many privileged bibliophiles as he could – only to be rumbled by two of their number
Four dangerous visionary writers
Simon Ings examines the lives of Maxim Gorky, Maurice Barrès, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Ding Ling, whose propagandism helped shape – and misshape – the 20th century
Have we all become more paranoid since the pandemic?
Covid-19 proved devastating to our self-confidence and faith in others, says Daniel Freeman, who describes the ‘corrosive’ effects of mistrust on individuals and society
Why are the Japanese so obsessed with the cute?
Some see it as a way of appearing harmless after the second world war – but an infantile delight in frolicking animals dates back to at least the 12th century
The lives of others
Ingrid Swenson spent ten years retrieving discarded shopping lists at a London Waitrose, and the result is a rare glimpse into entire, private worlds
Hail dairy
A lifetime obsession with milk has resulted in 350 numbered, lightly edited and loosely connected remarks about milk, its colour, its smell and much else. Weird or what?
A tidal wave of disinformation
Grotesque conspiracy theories merge and snowball, with serious global consequences. James Ball proposes a Digital Health System to counter the ‘pathogens’
Marks out of ten
Like a weary schoolmaster toiling over his pupils’ homework, Peter Kemp dispenses praise, encouragement or reproof to modern fiction’s big-hitters
The twists keep coming
Murray’s immersive, beautifully written mega-tome about a family in a small town in Ireland is as funny as it is deeply disturbing
Promises, promises
But the big ideas seem mainly to consist in acquiring new skills – like boxing and baking – and flexing the imagination muscle
Frank and fearless
Leaving poetry aside, his memoir covers insanity, debt, drugs, narcissism, religious mania and, more generally, the lengths we go to not to be bored
Flashes of brilliance
Funny old life, eh? Small world, etc. In one of those curious, Alan Bennett-y, believe-it-or-not-but-I-once-delivered-meat-to-the mother-in-law-of-T.S.-Eliot-type coincidences, it turns out…
Of man and misery
Do not be deterred, but do be warned. Rogues isn’t a book book: it’s a kind of high-end sizzle reel,…
The lady vanishes
This is a depressing book. It’s a reminder of everything that is sick, broken and generally maledicted about the human…
The lure of yellow pages
For almost as long as there have been books, there have been books about books — writers just love to…
Clive the poet
Clive James (1939-2019), in the much-quoted words of a New Yorker profile, was a brilliant bunch of guys. One of…
