Crime (UK) Court Number One by Thomas Grant, review: Old Bailey trials that tell story of the 20th centuryThe Telegraph - By Jake KerridgeAlthough the proliferation of Crown Courts around Britain in the past few decades has rather stolen its thunder, for most of the last century all the juiciest trials were held at the Old Bailey (as the
Books Freydal: the 16th-century comic that captures the thrill of joustingThe Telegraph - By Iona McLarenThe Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519), who counted among his ancestors Charlemagne, King Arthur, Julius Caesar, Heracles and Jupiter, believed in his own magnificence. The problem was that he
Jacob Rees-Mogg The Victorians by Jacob Rees-Mogg, review: this clichéd, lazy history often reads like it was written by a baboonThe Telegraph - By Simon HefferHaving always admired Jacob Rees-Mogg for his integrity – you don’t get much of that in politics these days – I find it hard to believe he actually wrote this book or, if someone wrote it for him, allowed
Books Goodbye Mog: why Judith Kerr killed the nation's favourite catThe Telegraph - By Martin ChiltonIn 2002, the children's author Judith Kerr was signing books for her readers at Harrods when a little girl approached to tell her how much she loved Kerr's fictional cat Mog. "I suddenly thought, 'Oh what
Anarchism Humour, anarchy and bags of charm: the elusive genius of Judith KerrThe Telegraph - By Emily BearnThe most successful picture books tend to be those that take one idea, and spin it out in as few words as possible. Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar has inspired Marxist and feminist interpretations,
The 100 best children's books of all timeThe Telegraph - By Telegraph ReportersIt's World Book Day and there are plenty of reading opportunities for young bookworms out there. Here, we present the best books to keep children occupied – whatever their age or interest. The first book
Books Mog, the tiger, and me: Judith Kerr on the stories behind her sketchesThe Telegraph - By Judith KerrWas the real ‘Mog’ eccentric? And was the tea-guzzling tiger drawn from life? Judith Kerr, who has died aged 95, shared the stories behind her most beloved illustrations with the Telegraph in 2014 upon
Terry Pratchett Good Omens: How Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's friendship inspired their comic masterpieceThe Telegraph - By Tom ChiversIn 1985, a young writer and another, slightly less young, writer met in a Chinese restaurant, probably somewhere in the Home Counties. The first was interviewing the second for a short-lived sci-fi-and-futurism
Grandparents Al Murray on Vanity Fair: My great-great-great-granddad wrote a comic masterpieceThe TelegraphAl Murray explains how he fell in love with his ancestor's literary classic William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is one of those books. You may have read it for A-level, you may have watched ITV’s
Books A Stranger City by Linda Grant, review: a novel that dares not speak Brexit’s nameThe Telegraph - By Claire AllfreeLinda Grant’s new novel begins in February 2016, with the funeral of an unknown woman, pulled from the Thames seven months previously and whose burial on an inhospitable winter morning has drawn only newly
Books Forward Prizes 2019: Fiona Benson, Isabel Galleymore shortlisted for top poetry awardsThe Telegraph - By Tristram Fane SaundersBooks about Super Mario, Greek gods and the Hillsborough disaster are in the running for the 2019 Forward Prizes for Poetry. Previous winners of the coveted annual awards – which have been called the Oscars”
Poetry L.E.L. by Lucasta Miller, review: young poet, racy verse, but no happily ever afterThe Telegraph - By Jane RidleyOne day in October 1838 the body of a 36-year-old Englishwoman was found dead on the floor of a room in Cape Coast Castle on the West African coast. In her hand was a bottle of prussic acid. She was the
Books Richard Holbrooke: the brilliant diplomat who combined the best and worst of AmericaThe Telegraph - By James WaltonJames Walton reviews Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century by George Packer In August 2010, rather to his own surprise, the US diplomat Richard Holbrooke was reduced to tears a
Greek to Me by Mary Norris, review: an extensive voyage into the author’s own psycheThe Telegraph - By Lewis JonesGreek, writes Mary Norris, has been her “salvation”, and she sees her relationship with it as a love affair: Greek is “sexy”, and “gives me an erotic thrill”. She studied the language, both ancient and
Mary Shelley Why Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is more relevant now than everThe Telegraph - By Jeanette WintersonIn the artificial intelligence goldrush, are we repeating the errors of Mary Shelley's man who created a monster? "In the summer of 1816 the poets Shelley and Byron, Byron’s physician, Polidori, Mary and
Folklore Spooky duckweed and grass for swingers: the secret folklore of British plantsThe Telegraph - By Richard MabeyRichard Mabey reviews Vickery’s Folk Flora: An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants by Roy Vickery Until quite recently, the duckweed-carpeted canals and flooded pits of Lancashire
Wales From medieval minstrels to Dylan Thomas: the rich history of Welsh literatureThe Telegraph - By Roger LewisRoger Lewis reviews The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature, edited by Geraint Evans and Helen Fulton When R S Thomas said, “To live in Wales is to be conscious/… of the spilled blood/ That went into
Books The Parisian by Isabella Hammad, review: a 27-year-old's magnificently risky debut challenges what it is to readThe Telegraph - By Sophie RatcliffeIf there’s one thing that makes reviewers throw shade, it’s a much-anticipated debut – especially when the author in question is shy of 30. Some gesture toward creative writing degrees. Others snipe at
Charles Dickens How Charles Dickens saved stranded Antarctic explorers with his wordsThe Telegraph - By Lucy DaviesIn January 1912, with winter roaring in, the scientific party attached to Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, the British attempt to conquer the South Pole, reached the Antarctic shore. A whaler
Marine Mammals The Porpoise by Mark Haddon, review: a strange but marvellous riff on Shakespeare’s PericlesThe Telegraph - By Tim Smith-LaingThen “ancient Gower” enters at the start of Pericles, he comes “To sing a song that old was sung”. It is no word of a lie: by the time of the play’s first performance in 1607 or 1608, the actual John had
Books Upheaval by Jared Diamond review: can nations in turmoil benefit from 'crisis therapy'?The Telegraph - By Vernon BogdanorJared Diamond is an American polymath. Trained as a physiologist, he then turned to ornithology and ecology while in his spare time learning six languages – and the piano. He apparently proposed to his
Books Sex, secrets and scandals: the wild life of Letitia Landon, 'the female Byron'The Telegraph - By Lucasta MillerThink “19th-century woman poet” and the image conjured up is other-worldly: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), all in white, slipping away at the sight of strangers, or the equally reclusive Emily Brontë (1818-1848).
Harper Lee Voodoo, murder and mystery: when Harper Lee turned to true crimeThe Telegraph - By James WaltonJames Walton reviews Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep In 1956, a 30-year-old airline ticket agent in New York was given what might well be the most significant
Books Of course Simon Armitage will be a good poet laureate – he's been doing it for yearsThe Telegraph - By Tristram Fane SaundersWhen Simon Armitage was announced on Friday night as our new poet laureate, for most people – including Armitage himself – it felt like business as usual. It’s easy to imagine him as “The English Astronaut”
Books My mum read a porno: an emotional odyssey through my late mother's Kindle erotica collectionThe Telegraph - By Dave WainIn the wake of his mother’s death, Dave Wain discovered thousands of erotic books stashed away on her Kindle account. He explains how his determination to read them became an unusual and poignant tribute
Books My Enemy’s Cherry Tree by Wang Ting-Kuo, review: a glimmering Taiwanese tale of love and sorrowThe Telegraph - By Francesca CaringtonWang Ting-Kuo’s English-language debut has a brilliantly marketable tale behind it: once one of Taiwan’s bright young literary darlings, Ting-Kuo disappeared entirely when he got engaged and his future
Books Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole review: pie-in-the-sky solutions to the housing crisisThe Telegraph - By Jamie BlackettThe reader is given an early indication of what sort of book this is when the author gives us a potted history of the Cold War: “Ronald Reagan reversed years of détente with the Soviet Union and began
Books Nina Stibbe wins two pigs in 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize victoryThe Telegraph - By Biba KangNina Stibbe has won the 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize with her new book, Reasons to be Cheerful. Last year, the comic fiction award didn’t go ahead, after the judges agreed that none of the made
William Shakespeare This Is Shakespeare by Emma Smith, review: a brilliantly lighthearted guide to the BardThe Telegraph - By Tim Smith-LaingIt is typical of John Keats’s brilliance that he should have happened on one of the great critical insights of all time while walking home from a pantomime. Including it as a by-the-by tucked on to the
