Books

Christmas gifts for children that don't need screens or take batteries

Don't just pick up the latest plastic toys with lights and noises – take a look at these gifts which kids will love just as much as you do.

In Focus: How Roald Dahl's love of the countryside shaped his life's work

The countryside filled the Matilda author Roald Dahl with joy and proved a constant source of inspiration, as Matthew Dennison reveals in a new biography of the prolific storyteller.

The American airman's portrait of 1940s England that portrays a world that's already disappeared

A chance encounter with a book stall opens the eyes of our columnist Agromenes as he sees England through the eyes of an American airman.

In Focus: T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the poem of broken modern civilisation that seems more apt than ever

On the 100th anniversary of its publication, Julie Harding asks why T. S. Eliot’s great poem The Waste Land, with its devastating vision of a broken modern civilisation, still resonates so strongly today.

In Focus: The enduring beauty of Thomas Gray's Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

Jack Watkins considers the timeless brilliance of Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.'

The true mark of genius of Jane Austen's Persuasion? Even when its bad, it's still pretty good

Ruth Manning-Sanders: 'She was certain that it was every child’s birthright to visit a world of enchantment and occasional terrors'

Nursery favourite Ruth Manning-Sanders believed it was every child’s birthright to enter a world of enchantment and occasional terrors, where good always triumphs over evil, discovers Matthew Dennison.

Curious Questions: Should you get rid of wasps?

Yes, they're a pain at your summer barbecue, but wasps are also voracious predators of other insects — and some of Nature’s most important pest controllers. Seirian Sumner, author of ‘Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps’, explains a few of the reasons that you might want to hold off calling the pest controller — and, indeed, why you it might be time to start providing wasp nesting houses in your garden, alongside that designer bee hotel.

The Duchess of Cornwall names her all-time favourite books

An avid reader, The Duchess of Cornwall has long promoted the importance of literacy via her patronages of the National Literacy Trust and BookAid International — among many other bodies — as well as her popular literary hub, The Reading Room. Here, she selects her three favourite books.

'Russia must be isolated. Utterly walled off,' said the Russian. 'When Putin falls, the new regime will be the same as the old'

Jason Goodwin heads east and meets an exiled Russian with an eye-opening perspective.

Thomas Hardy's Wessex vs the real-life Dorset: Which bits are real, which dreams, and which are exact to the last stream and stile

Thomas Hardy’s depictions of a fictional Wessex and his own dear Dorset are more accurate than they may at first appear, says Susan Owens.

Jonathan Self: What I found out when I finally read a book I'd been meaning to read for 40 years

The author finally plucked up the courage to read Montaigne — here's what he made of it.

In Focus: Gerald Durrell, the 'pioneer with a marvellous sense of humour'

The author, conservationist and avid nature-lover describes his childhood in Corfu with the 'recollections of a child in a kind of earthy paradise,' in his book, My Family and Other Animals, finds Jack Watkins.

Jonathan Self: The greatest novel of the 20th century? Maybe, but 'Ulysses' still sent me to sleep within three pages

Jonathan Self looks back on some of the great books published exactly a century ago.

The rare images of J.R.R. Tolkien which caused a sensation at auction

Pamela Chandler's portraits of the great J.R.R. Tolkien went under the hammer recently, almost doubling the estimate set by the auctioneers.

How M.R. James wove country house architecture into his ghost stories

In his ghost stories, M. R. James had a perceptive eye for architectural detail, as Jeremy Musson explains and Matthew Rice evokes in specially commissioned drawings.

The wonderful tales of Christmas don’t change the difficulties we face, but they do serve to make the world a better place

Christmas is a time for comforting and uplifting stories, with their hope and unwavering faith in human nature.

The 100 greatest cathedrals in Europe, as picked by Simon Jenkins

Simon Jenkins gives himself a daunting task with his latest book, Europe's 100 Best Cathedrals (Viking, £30), which does no less than attempt to both explain and judge the masterpieces of western civilisation. Clive Aslet took a look and found a tome that will set readers 'afire to go on architectural pilgrimage'.

In Focus: Why the eerie thrives in art and culture

The tradition of ‘eerie’ literature and art, invoking fear, unease and dread, has flourished in the shadows of British landscape culture for centuries, says Robert Macfarlane.

Anne Glenconner: How rehabilitating Princess Margaret made her a literary phenomenon on the cusp of her tenth decade

Anne Glenconner, the former lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret who has become a publishing phenomenon, speaks to Flora Watkins about finding fame late in life. Main photograph by Hal Shinnie.