Born before it even existed, Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) knew all about Ireland’s hard border. “O stony grey soil of Monaghan,” he wrote, “you burgled the bank of my youth!” The son of
Celebrity is a two-edged sword. The enticement of fame and fortune can soon fade under the exposure of public scrutiny. It has been ever thus since the advent of mechanised printing and
“Oy veh iz mir.” This is the cry of the diaspora Jew from Newcastle to New Jersey. “Nu?” Now what? Oy for the sadness, the salt tears, the tears of laughter, the
“There’s not much more to say on the subject,” says brittle Robert in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal — an acceptance that the moral complexities of adultery are as old as Zeus. Yet more
Nearly 40 years ago, when my wife and I were in a bookshop in Paris, she bought La Source Grecque by Simone Weil. As a mathematician, I knew nothing of the author
“Whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more
One picks up a book written by a former leading Liberal Democrat about a conspiracy theory with a certain amount of wariness. Many will have hoped to have forgotten The Strange Death
As the Brexit deadlock in Parliament drags on and on, some important voices are missing: those of the politicians who got us here in the first place. Where are Tony Blair, Gordon