Talking ’Bout My Generation
Three memoirs explain what it was like growing up in the postwar era and how their generation shaped Britain and America
Politics, Ideas and the Arts
The Global Race isn’t a Sprint
A perfect book for anyone suffering from a surfeit of Thomas Piketty
Molly Bloom’s Day in Court
The epic story of the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses is well-deserving of its own biography
First Novel on a Booker Mission
Zia Haider Rahman is erudite and articulate - but no novelist
Musical Testosterone at the Proms
William Walton was inspired by sexual energy
Rainbow warriors
Variations in the paint used by artists tell an often ignored story of science, trade and ingenuity
The Controversy of Cornelius Gurlitt
The case of the art hoarder Cornelius Gurlitt provides illuminating insights into the German character
Enjoy the analysis, ignore the advice
Piketty's commitment to rational informed debate is laudable, but his remedies for inequality are not
1948 and All That
Three new books on the Israel-Palestine conflict
1,001 nights on the Tigris
A truly splendid work of erudition, storytelling and humanity
Capital in the 19th Century
Osterhammel's 'The Transformation of the World' shows up the work of all-too-many other historians
The Age of the Warrior Poet
It is a remarkable fact that WW1 produced a distinctive brand of poetry, and poets, and WW2 nothing comparable