Modern Tinkering
Every age has a need to retell old stories and legends, to re-clothe the bones with new flesh; which makes…
Risk and Repetition
Should you come upon this book in a shop, or see its title headlined in a review, it would…
Old Possum’s Black Pages
The astonishing two-volume The Poems of T.S. Eliot is a vast cathedral of dazzling scholarly annotation. Years in the…
The Imaginative Mind: Enchantment and Transcendence in John Ashbery’s Collected French Translations
‘Only connect . . .’ wrote E.M. Forster in Howards End. John Ashbery responds to this invitation with his…
Filthy with Erotic Mystery
Jonathan Bate, Ted Hughes, The Unauthorised Life, William Collins, 2015, 672pp, £25 (hardback) First, a few confessional words: I was…
Grappling with Structure
Giacometti: Pure Presence, National Portrait Gallery, London, until 10th January 2016 Giacometti lived a peculiarly double life, despite his…
Painterly Figuration
Eileen Hogan, Browse & Darby, London, 9 September – 2 October 2015 Julian Perry, Mascalls Gallery, Paddock Wood, Kent,…
Infinite Archive
Disinformation, Frances Leviston, Picador, 2015, 80pp, £9.98 (paperback) Kim Kardashian’s Marriage, Sam Riviere, Faber, 2015, 112pp, £10.99 (paperback) These two…
Beneath the Crust
Goya – The Portraits, National Gallery, London, until 10 January 2016 To most, the mention of the name Francisco Goya…
Ghostly Mentor
Complete Poems, Muriel Spark, Carcanet, 2015, afterword by Michael Schmidt, 133pp, £14.99 (paperback) Complete Poems, R.F. Langley, Carcanet, 2015, edited…
Neat Shape?
Gimson’s Kings and Queens: Brief lives of the monarchs since 1066, Andrew Gimson, Square Peg, 2015, 256pp, £10.99 (hardback) Penguin…
Faithful and Disappointing
The Importance of Elsewhere – Philip Larkin’s Photographs, Richard Bradford, Frances Lincoln, 2015, 208pp, £25 (hardcover) © The Estate of…
A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk
A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk I was reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow in London recently, when a Scottish man stopped me…
The Lobster
The Lobster If you were to be turned into an animal what animal would you choose? This question remains at…
Installing Time
One More Time, Cornelia Parker at St Pancras International (until November 2015 ) Train travellers at St Pancras station in…
The Quest for Meaning
Shadows Waltz Haltingly, Alan Morrison, Lapwing Press, 2015, 84pp, £10 (paperback) The Beautiful Librarians, Sean O’Brien, Picador, 2015, 64pp, £9.99…
The Kid from Kogarah Grows Up
Latest Readings, Clive James, Yale University Press, 2015, 192pp, £12.99 (hardcover) When Australian polymath Clive James was diagnosed with terminal…
No Longer Impregnable
When the Facts Change, Essays 1995-2010, Tony Judt, edited and introduced by Jennifer Homans, William Heinemann, 2015, £25 (hardcover) Ours is…
Metaphors of a Troubled Mind
Lucky to be an Artist, Unity Spencer, Unicorn Press, 2015, 256 pp. £24 (hardcover) The title Unity Spencer has chosen…
The Invisibility of Beauty
The 56th Biennale di Venezia (various artists and venues until 22 November 2015) Ruskin’s Venice: The Stones Revisited (New Edition),…
Love and Judgement
L’Amore dei Tre Re, Italo Montemezzi, Opera Holland Park, July 22nd – August 1st. In early 1939, with the threat…
40 Sonnets by Don Paterson
Paterson is at his best when writing about heartbreak. “The Six,” this reviewer’s favourite piece in 40 Sonnets, speaks…
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood In 2009, Ursula K. Le Guin caused something of a stir in the…
The New World by Chris Adrian & Eli Horowitz
The New World Chris Adrian & Eli Horowitz Granta, £12.99 (paperback) The New World opens grippingly by immersing the reader…
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