Books

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an British master of travel writing, exploring memories of the Spanish Civil War by following the route of the memorable 1941 Vuelta a Espana bicycle race

The threat from 21st century fascism is not of a modern day March on Rome or a beerhall putsch. It's far more insidious. By PAUL MASON, the broadcaster and author of a new book on the subject

As two new books and an artist’s opera project revisit the enigmatic Maria Callas, the best way to understand her is by focusing on the most obvious place.. the stage.

CHARLIE CONNELLY on three new books of poetry on strikingly different themes: a sixth century saint, an endangered species and the everyday episodes which take place in a supermarket

With a new dating show based on the Jane Austen book, perhaps there's a truth to be acknowledged that every literary classic is in need of a reality TV format. By CHARLIE CONNELLY

Charlie Connelly offers his selection of perfect holiday reading, from the latest new European paperbacks

The buildings and monuments of Antwerp can still take your breath away. But in a long-ago golden age, it was the centre of Europe

The roots of author J R R Tolkien’s name are almost as tangled as his fantasy fiction.

In his younger days, Billy Wilder was a journalist in Europe. A new book of his writings doesn’t give much of a glimpse of the continent, but does provide insights into his later career

CHARLIE CONNELLY on what we can expect from Boris Johnson's much-discussed and long-delayed book on William Shakespeare

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a new book which offers a many-layered commentary on modern France and explores the malevolence that can lurk deep within communities  Sometimes it’s the tiny details that really get to you. A passing mention, an aside, something that should seem practically irrelevant but, wham, hits you right in the heart. In Samira Sedira’s […]

The fate of a Dublin building which was the setting for a James Joyce story raises interesting questions about property closely associated with literature There are few cities that come to literary life in the manner of Dublin on Bloomsday. June 16 every year, the date in 1904 on which the events of James Joyce’s Ulysses unfold, […]

Writers have long been drawn to islands. Few have managed to express – and satisfy – that yearning like Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins  “If I could wish something good for someone, I would wish for them an island with no address.” When Tove Jansson wrote those words sitting in her Helsinki apartment in 1962, the tiny cottage on […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an award for translated fiction that is gradually growing in stature, and its very worthy winner While most of the annual book award talk is naturally focused on the Booker Prize for Fiction there are other gongs whose gentler tones occasionally penetrate the literary din. The Women’s Prize for Fiction grows in […]

A marketing invention of the publishing industry or a genuine opportunity to broaden horizons? CHARLIE CONNELLY on the phenomenon of beach books Now that the sun’s been out for longer than 20 minutes it won’t be long before we’re bombarded with recommendations for this year’s holiday reading. As ever these will take two forms: a […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a truly epic novel which pays fitting tribute to the female pioneers of aviation One of my favourite historic photographs was taken 99 years ago. It’s of a young woman, wrapped up in a heavy coat and headscarf against a cold wind coming in off the sea, standing alone in a field […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the woman behind an 80-year-old masterpiece, one of the most important books about Europe of the last century A couple of weeks ago a tweet by the American novelist Jake Wolff made me laugh out loud. It read, “Creative nonfiction writers be like: I first ate a hotdog when I was six […]

The Foghorn’s Lament focuses on an unusual subject that inspires a spellbinding book One of my earliest memories is of foghorns. It’s of my sister and I being wrapped in warm clothing and lifted into wellington boots, sleep-dozy because it’s nearly midnight, and taken by our parents out of the front door of our house […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY has high praise for author Rónán Hession, a unique talent able to tell gently-paced tales of gentle characters Rónán Hession is a tonic for our times. In fact, you know what, he might even be the tonic for our times. I don’t say this lightly. When I read the Dubliner’s debut novel Leonard and […]

The publishing industry has remained remarkably robust through the pandemic, but the coronavirus has exacerbated some alarming trends for the UK’s literary scene. I only realised this the other day while I was actually doing it, but of all the things I’ve missed during the pandemic – popping out for a pint, going to the […]

In both war and peace, a love of reading made Napoleon history’s biggest bibliophile.  When you’re an enthusiastically expansionist autocrat and visionary military leader building an empire that will cover almost an entire continent your work doesn’t, it’s fair to say, leave much time for hobbies. Julius Caesar produced no macramé of note; Alexander the […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a superb new novel which creates a horrifyingly plausible near-future for Margate. There’s a different kind of sky over the Isle of Thanet, a vast canopy, bigger even somehow than that over the flatlands of the Fens. And the light, the light is different there, and when the sun sets over the sea in […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on two new European novels which highlight the underappreciated artistry of translators The job of a literary translator can be a thankless one. It’s a multiskilled calling with two main demands: fluency in at least one other language that isn’t your own and an exceptional talent for writing. It’s a role requiring immense artistic […]

Born 200 years ago this month, Charles Baudelaire continues to inspire memes, musicians and even Monty Burns in The Simpsons. CHARLIE CONNELLY explains his remarkable relevance. The most famous image of Charles Baudelaire is a portrait taken in or around 1863 by the Parisian photographer Etienne Carjat. It was part of a series called Galerie Contemporaine, in […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a brilliant writer whose recently rediscovered story of a Jew forced to become a fugitive of the Nazis has echoes of his own itinerant, tragic life. When 27-year-old Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz leaned on the deck rail and watched the sun set over the Atlantic on October 29, 1942, he felt his wanderings […]

The novelist considers the Japanese appreciation of all that is both imperfect and impermanent in the works of man and nature One of them is about twelve inches by eight, is entirely covered by a patina that ranges from light tan to black, and has a bottom dimpled and hummocked by having been bashed repeatedly […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the radical double life of beloved children’s author Arthur Ransome. Few writers have evoked a more bucolic view of England than Arthur Ransome. In the dozen books that comprise the Swallows and Amazons series he conjured magical stories of endless school holidays spent camping, fishing and messing about in boats, exploring nature and making […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an important new book that concentrates on the societies – not the states – that have emerged from communism. In 1996 Britain was, well, a bit full of itself. Nothing new there of course, but this time there was a tangible positivity about a new and vigorous assertion of Britishness. It felt as […]

Long sceptical about whether such a phenomenon existed, CHARLE CONNELLY starts to wonder if there might be something in it after all. I sat down to write this piece about writer’s block at eight o’clock this morning. It’s now 11.20am and I’m only just putting words onto the blank document that’s been sitting here open and […]

A new book by writer and broadcaster David Baddiel gets right to the heart of anti-Semitism, and why it has taken such a hold on the left. Smear. Bundled up in that single syllable are years of pain and anger felt by Jewish people who have failed to persuade the putative anti-racist movement that we know […]

A new book by Peter Oborne chronicles Boris Johnson’s history of deceit and how his time in Downing Street has poisoned British political culture.  In an interview with the American television network CBS earlier this month Boris Johnson sought to reassure president Joe Biden that he would do nothing to harm the Good Friday agreement. Johnson tried […]

A brilliant new novel shows how the city’s traumatic past still has a powerful hold on Europe, three decades on. A few years ago I emerged from the mouth of a tunnel onto scrubby ground next to a house just outside Sarajevo airport. The sunshine after the darkness had me screwing up my eyes, my big […]