Unlike Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping did not pretend to be a poet, a philosopher or a calligrapher. The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, in a mere three volumes, offer few hints about the person himself.

On Wednesday 28 January 1756, the Jamaican planter Thomas Thistlewood made a brief entry in his journal: ‘Had Derby well whipped, and made Egypt shit in his face.’ The punishment was not a one-off; ...

‘And then suddenly there was this thing called pop music.’ Thus speaks Garth Dangerfield, lead singer of the Helium Kids, as he looks back on his career in a band that appeared on Top of the Pops ...

It is odd to read a novel one simultaneously admires and loathes. The admiration is for the book’s intelligence, lack of sentimentality and often extraordinary phrase-making: the loathing is for the ...

The launch of The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s sequel to 1985’s The Handmaid’s Tale, was one of the most anticipated publishing events of the 21st century. When Amazon dispatched pre-ordered editions ...

IT IS NO disparagement of Esther Freud's many talents to say that The Sea House has a rather familiar atmosphere. There is the picturesque East of England setting ('Steerborough' is transparently the ...

One of the most important facts about Michel Houellebecq – usually overlooked in favour of his nihilism, alleged racism and other attention-seeking provocations – is that he is a first-rate prose ...

Rid your mind of the idea – suggested by the ordinary title – that this is an ordinary book for first-time excursionists into French territory. It could indeed be taken with advantage in the backpack ...

Richard Holloway is the first mate who incites a mutiny, makes his fellow mutineers walk the plank, dynamites the scuppers, and takes to a lifeboat. His has been a difficult life for his shipmates.

That rough beast the Great American Novel has been slouching around since the 19th century in the form of hefty books by male authors, from Melville and Hemingway to Franzen and DeLillo. It’s always ...

Unless I have drastically misunderstood his latest novel, I’m forced to conclude that, in his ninth decade, Norman Mailer has completely dropped his conkers. The Castle in the Forest is a preposterous ...

Two years ago Victoria Glendinning announced that she was having to self-finance her new book, a biography of Stamford Raffles, because she was unable to find a publisher. ‘They want Victoria to do ...