Radio Play
Chess may not seem suited to radio, but in the Sixties the BBC broadcast special programmes featuring the world’s greatest ever players
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
Holst Beyond The Planets
It is a misfortune shared by several composers — notably British ones, who still struggle to be valued by those loath to travel beyond Mozart and Beethoven — to be known for
Their Own Worst Enemies
Jonathan Schanzer’s State of Failure persuasively argues that Palestine is not a country or state but a cause with the sole intention of destroying the Jews
Liberty Here, Tyranny There
The apologetics over John Stuart Mill’s shocking attitudes towards foreigners is the only thing that lets down Georgios Varouxakis’s otherwise excellent study of the political philosopher You can make a passable case
The Bard and his Collaborators
The plays included in William Shakespeare and Others may fall outside the bard’s official canon, but many of them display the virtuoso hallmarks of the great man
Both Ancient and Avant-Garde
A new expanded edition of E.E. Cummings’s Collected Poems demonstrates that, despites his brief sojourns in the avant-garde, the poet always found his way to a profound simplicity A terrible crisis has
A Visit From the Ofpoe Inspector
Craig Raine’s collected essays, More Dynamite, is a collection that blows holes in fellow poets’ work, and ends leaving the poetry landscape very battered and bleak Craig Raine has a passionate love
Banalities From Behind Bars
Bland, self-serving and naive, Vicky Price’s 'prison memoir' contains not a jot of insight or introspection
The Bibliophile and the Bore
Two new books about reading are polar opposites. Alexander McCall Smith's musings are platitudinous while Nick Hornby reads like someone you’d love to chat with until the sun came up
Musical Maestro of the Palette
Paul Klee’s compositions were lyrical masterpieces whose rhythms and colours inspire awe
Sarah Raphael and a Father’s Pride and Grief
As a major retrospective of his daughter’s work opens in London, Frederic Raphael talks about her artistic life and untimely death
Damian McBride: A Cautionary Tale
Did Gordon Brown’s aide receive moral formation at Peterhouse, Cambridge? If not, why not?