Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate Jorge Semprun, Life or Literature Jean D’Ormesson, At God’s Pleasure W. Sebald, Austerlitz Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog James Salter, All There Is John Williams, Stonor Amy Sackville, Orkney Tim O’Brien, In the Lake [...]

To dine in Hall by candlelight remains a great tradition at Magdalene College, Cambridge. At my matriculation dinner, aged 18, I was put next to I. A. Richards, the father of modern English studies. Thick spectacles, long white hair, he lifted his head towards the other tables, and revealed how, sixty years earlier, he sat where I [...]

Nicole Kidman was stirring feathers as Princess Grace in Cannes this week. It reminded me that one of Priscilla's lovers in Occupied France, the Belgian racing ace Emile Cornet, became Princess Grace's press secretary after war, causing an international hullabaloo in March 1962 when he broke the news that Grace was to return to the screen to star in Alfred [...]