At first sight, Swede Levov is an unlikely protagonist for Philip Roth’s new novel. Ever since Alexander Portnoy’s celebrated complaint of 1969 ‘put the id back into yid’, Roth has specialised in ...

Even in his own lifetime, King Henry VIII became notorious throughout Europe for his serial marriages. When Henry was combing the Continent for a woman willing to become his fourth wife, English ...

‘Mindfulness’ is due a backlash, surely. And it starts here. Sort of. The authors, both psychologists, and one an experienced meditator with a lifelong interest in spiritual matters, originally set ...

Drudge Culture - Small Holdings by Nicola Barker ...

Richard V Reeves: Why Some Are More Equal Than Others - Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea by Darrin M McMahon ...

Eric Shanes’s remarkable book about the first half of J M W Turner’s career is the summation of thirty years of research into the painter’s work by a group of curators at the Tate Gallery, members of ...

Stephen Greenblatt’s ardent and involving new book is concerned with rulers and aspirants in Shakespeare who abuse their power. It draws attention to a very wide range of characters. There are the out ...

‘Do as I say, not as I do’ applies to philosophy as much as any other discipline. The search for the Good Life (what the Ancient Greeks termed eudaimonia) does not presuppose a good life, or a ...

There is a story about René Descartes according to which the philosopher once owned a female automaton so convincing that a superstitious mariner, seeing the machine in operation, declared it the work ...

With The Real Lolita, Sarah Weinman might be said to have invented a completely new genre: true-crime literary criticism, which is not to be confused with truly criminal literary criticism, which, of ...

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more. Since Trump took office, economists have rushed out dire forecasts for growth in America and the rest of ...

With close to five hundred records relating to his life surviving and the prospect of still more being found, Geoffrey Chaucer remains one of the best-documented premodern Britons. The commanding size ...