F. Scott Fitzgerald
What makes a good title?
Liszt’s compositions tend to have descriptive titles – ‘Wild Chase’; ‘Dreams of Love’ – whereas Chopin avoided titles. Thomas Wentworth…
The fresh hell of Dorothy Parker’s Hollywood
Though well paid as a screenwriter, Parker lampooned Hollywood’s moguls, dubbing MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Merde as she slipped further into alcoholism
High life
Gstaad This is my last week in the Alps and I’m trying to get it all in – skiing, cross-country,…
High life
Gstaad That’s all we needed in a great year: copyright has expired on The Great Gatsby. Some Fitzgerald wannabe has…
High life
I find myself detached from mainstream culture. It started with the demise of nightclubs like Annabel’s and the arrival of…
High life
An operation on my hand after a karate injury has had me reading more than usual. I even attempted Don…
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho…
Work is a funny old thing — a four-letter word to some, the meaning of life to others. There have…
Made in Chelski
It’s surprising there haven’t been more novels drawing on London’s fascination with Russian oligarchs. But how to write about them…
Low life
The hotel and its bright tan prayer rug of a beach were one. In the early morning the distant image…
High Life
The leaves are falling non-stop, like names dropped in Hollywood, and it has suddenly turned colder than the look I…
In Papa’s footsteps
‘In the years since 1961 Hemingway’s reputation as “the outstanding author since the death of Shakespeare” shrank to the extent…
The muse in the bottle
The boozer’s life is one of low self-esteem and squalid self-denial. It was memorably evoked by Charles Jackson in his…
