Hell hath no fury like a Brooker scorned - HE'S top stuff – even if the mumbling, jealous critics will say the Guardian’s Charlie Brooker, for all his talent and ...>more

Postscript to the hippy generation - IT'S a bold writer who begins in heaven.
But that’s what north London author Anthony Gardner does in his first ...>more

Franks’ tales of modern cringe-inducing manners - INTENDED or not, the trench metaphor that lends its name to long-serving Times journalist Alan Franks’ latest ...>more

Inside track on a bloody story of rail - THOUSANDS died building them and worked in appalling conditions. The railways brought war and civilisation in equal ...>more

Georgian boom and bust! - ENTRY into the world’s oldest profession still demands only one qualification – namely that you sell your body for another’s sexual ...>more

Is suburbia the real land of the free? - PAUL Barker has been having fun.
The former editor of New Society – oh how we miss that once ...>more

The silent suffering of a very talented chap - ARE we creatures of our environment? Certainly, some might insist, the arrival of new technologies has ...>more

Ah! Bananas and tinned spaghetti - THE British Film Institute has in its archives around one billion feet of film. It includes books, documents, letters, posters ...>more

Brian’s longer shot at Gunners - GOODNESS, not another book about Arsenal, what’s left to say? Every writer whose ever been to Highbury or the new Emirates ...>more

Scenes from a unique friendship - HANNAH Arendt described the friendship between Brecht and Walter Benjamin as that between “the greatest living German ...>more

The trouble with Harry - BLOODY Marvellous! shouted the Daily Mirror’s front page after Dunkirk. What had been a rout of the British Army in retreat was turned ...>more

Travels with Keats in the realms of Gold - BEAUTY is truth, truth beauty’, that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to now. In these two lines, from “Ode ...>more

Seduced by the charm of China - FOR centuries explorers, missionaries, adventurers and political idealists have been lured by the...>more

It’s broken? Give pieces a chance! - WHILE climate change creates doomsday headlines, the answer to all this may just be lurking at the bottom of the...>more

Welcome to Frank’s house of fun and games - FRANK Johnson died in 2006 aged 63. Born into a traditional working-class family in Stoke Newington, he...>more

Brought to book on the War on Terror - HE doesn’t much look like a ruthless war crimes prosecutor. Erudite and cheery, Paul Todd seems more a good-natured...>more

Literary masters of a carefully crafted cruelty - IF it wasn’t bad enough already, there is something else significantly missing from our Parliament, amid the debris ...>more

Retracing Chaucer’s steps along the Canterbury trail - PETER Ackroyd has done it again, almost with ease. His version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is ...>more

On a path to the liberating sounds of the suburbs - SUBURBIA is one of those dirty words, like crazy paving or pebble-dash, a term looked on with disdain ...>more

‘We studied Shakespeare – but we read Dickens’ - FOR the only English writer who can rival Shakespeare for his posthumous influence and ongoing popularity...>more

Fay’s slice of futuristic National Meatloaf - DON'T put your head under the blankets when those Tory bogeymen Dave Cameron and his young sidekick George ...>more

‘A writer’s life for me – even if it takes a lifetime’ - WILFRED Fraser recites the first verse of the 19th-century ballad “Bingen on the Rhine”, his eyes brimming with ...>more

How Gardens estate bloomed into a model community - I MUST begin by making a declaration of interest. This history of the Lissenden Gardens estate...>more

Poet Porter keeps faith in music - IT'S a truth universally acknowledged, says Peter Porter, that a Commonwealth poet coming to London must, sooner ...>more

Ensuring that the Tube keeps getting verse - THEY have raised smiles in the rush hour, brought some peace and solace to troubled minds on their way to or ...>more

All at sea: notes from an urban Crusoe wash up at the theatre - DES Marshall has an anxious, pessimistic friend called Robinson Crusoe. Des doesn’t exactly ...>more

How to still the chattering monkeys - ONCE a month, in a quiet room overlooking the rooftops of Belsize Park, a dozen or so people meet. They are there to...>more

A tour round past centuries in today’s streets of London - WALK up – and look up – from Trafalgar Square towards Charing Cross Road. On your right is...>more

Champ banks on another winning hand - I’M not super stitious,” Victoria Coren, journalist and poker star says. “But I won’t wear green. It is unlucky.”>more

A candid look at the secrets kept between friends - HANGING around the exits of West End night clubs on a school night does not sound like the usual research ...>more

Clarks and misdemeanours - YOU can blame Hampstead, if you want to.
For it was in the Christmas holidays in 1946 that Alan Clark found himself ...>more

‘In mad rush to the future, important things get lost’ - ACCORDING to Samuel Johnson, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. So what, to take the analogy ...>more

Colourful past of lives lived vividly in the present - EZRA Pound, the poet, said it is only the most insatiable curiosity that keeps the true poet and artist alive and ...>more

Right to Buy comes home to roost - SITTING in the council chamber earlier this summer listening to Labour councillor Roger Robinson recall the days of the ...>more

Sad end for orphan who rose to cinematic stardom - THE name Barbara Stanwyck might not mean much to my generation, for whom hell raising Hollywood ...>more

Trials of Kinsellas after Ben stabbing - WHY Ben? by former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella is a book so full of anger and pain that there were times... > more

‘We could certainly do with a new Winstanley to help today’ - KEVIN Brownlow admits, disarmingly, that he had never heard of Gerrard Winstanley when... > more

The bohemian rhapsody of life with Dylan - ‘I’d like you to come over: I’ve been told my illness is now in the terminal stages,” Aeronwy said with characteristic... > more

A reminder of the ‘demonised Irish’- THIS book captures, better than any of the histories of the period, what it was like to be young, Irish and demonised in London...>more

No Booker prize special effects, it’s just a great read - ANNE Tyler is best known for her novel, The Accidental Tourist, later filmed with William Hurt as Macon. >more

Loveless childhood in the Organisation - WHEN a well known TV actress writes a book my first thought is,‘Please, not another celebrity novel’. >more

A book to take a bite out of - IT'S a strange world when the Food Standards Agency issues a major report claiming there is no difference at all – nutritionally ...>more

American pie and a slice of soul from Godfather - SO, where do you place James Brown in the merit of musical order we all have in the back of our heads? >more

The day war broke out - SUNDAY, September 3, 1939 was an extraor dinary day, for it is not often that one awakes to witness the beginning of a World War.>more

Writer whose life reads like a thriller - THE film of Sean Graham’s life has not yet been made, but it is only a matter of time. Separated from his parents at birth...>more

It’s the Lord’s own view of our great cricket grounds - THAT languid left-hander David Gower once buzzed in a Tiger Moth biplane over his England colleagues ...>more

Yes we can! Unlocking the science of success - ALONGSIDE such iconic titles as Silent Spring, The Hidden Persuaders and A Brief History of Time, Malcolm ...>more

Dreams of empire fatally flawed - THE Germans, despite winning a huge eastern empire by the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in 1917, lost the First World War when they ...>more

Chevalier’s remarkable fossil pearl - SHE'S done it again – the woman who brought us the girl with Vermeer’s pearl earring and the family that lived next door to ...>more

Swashbuckling hero trips over gleeful biographer - LOTHARIO, brawler, polygamist, drug guzzler, mother hater, war correspondent, yachtsman, slave trader...>more

Firebombed publishing house launches new line in comedy - GIBSON Square, the Islington publishing house fire-bombed after it announced its intention ...>more

McCarthy’s bad guy role in a dark Hollywood drama - HE died a wretch. In 1957, aged just 48. And deservedly so, since he had been drinking a quart... > more

From stamps to anti-war protest – Gentleman’s art - WHEN actor Maggie Smith was starring in Alan Bennett’s stage version of his work The Lady... > more

A blinkered distortion of our history - MY father arrived in London in 1924 to become a crime reporter in Fleet Street. He had “made his bones” on.... > more

Summer of 1951 revisited - THOSE in the Prince Charles school of architect criticism say that the best view of London is from the South Bank – because you... > more

A serious search for what made the authentic Muriel Spark tick - THE conclusion by the end of Martin Stannard’s 627 unyielding pages of Muriel Spark’s biography ...>more

Poetic truths from great nephew of the lover who brought down Wilde - THERE are few families with a history as long as that of the Scottish border family Douglas.>more

New Labour have blown it: things can only get better - PROFESSOR Mary Davis was bemused by the fuss over MPs’ expenses. She suggests it is merely a ...>more

How fancying a bloke took me into a war zone - ASHTON Kutcher, Hollywood movie hunk and young squeeze to Demi Moore, sat opposite Jane Bussmann and ...>more

Explosive impact of a bout of jealousy? - THE assassins saw the brother of their intended victim, and decided that instead of waiting for the sibling ... > more

A Freud who dined behind enemy lines - WE'VE all heard of Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, who escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna to spend... > more

‘People cannot lose if they resist’ - I still cringe when I remember my first meeting with Nawal El-Saadawi. > more

A weird new tale of two cities - CHINA Miéville’s stubborn reluctance to renounce childhood preoccupations is perhaps the reason for his... > more

Keats’s 19th century recaptured - IF the poet John Keats were to step out of a time machine, he may be shocked by the plethora of 4 X 4s clogging up the streets...>more

The art of judging a book by its cover - THE waft of brewers yeast, the stench of boiling vats of malt and hops, and the musty scent of dray horses filled the room. >more

Vortex of great talent at the core of a chaotic existence - GEORGE Gissing’s classic New Grub Street (1891), required reading for anyone who has ever ...>more

Wake up to sleep secrets - WHY can’t we admit to how much we enjoy sleep? It’s the most glorious, restorative pleasure, something that improves mind and ...>more

Sole survivor Dave Gillies, the heart-throb of old Hampstead - WITH his slicked-back hair and matinée idol good looks, Dave Gillies used to cause quite a stir ...>more

Glue from north London’s melting pot - AN elderly German Jew who dresses to kill and calls everyone “dahlink” and a bossy Palestinian handyman, who rides ...>more

Malvina, the ‘recording’ artist tuned into Britain - SHE was born a year after the outbreak of the First World War and was taking her first steps when the... > more

Evil Oliver’s legacy of enduring hate - EVEN today, in Irish-speaking parts of Ireland, the worst curse that one can utter is “Malacht Cromail ort”... > more

Molly, Mendelssohn and how to conduct harmony at home - THERE you are, a woman of high ecological principles, with every intention of saving the planet... > more

‘In life, we are all beginners’ - HE was the artist who devoted his great talent to those at the coal face of life, going down the pits in South Wales to... > more

In the deep end of the history of pools - THE fierce debate over the future of Kentish Town Baths now may be submerged by other arguments and may... > more

Paperback writer looks back at Beatles book 40 years on - BEATLES Towers ought to be the name emblazoned on a house in quiet Boscastle Road, Kentish Town...>more

Georgian love story with real heart - MOST writers would kill for Nicholas Tchkotoua’s romantic pedigree. A Georgian prince forced into exile by the ...>more

‘Money has replaced honour and imagination’ - IT was one of the questions I had to ask agony aunt and writer Irma Kurtz. Would she be interested in standing... > more

The banner bright, the symbol plain, of human right and human gain - JOCK Nicolson was a leading Communist in Camden from 1955 for about 30 years. > more

Bill pointed to his own scandal from beyond the grave - SCANDAL in Fleet Street! It is perhaps appropriately perverse that while the Daily Telegraph fulfils... > more

Book talk brings the classics to life - THIS is a book group with a difference, a sitting-room seminar that goes by the name of the Parisian Literary Salon. > more

Did Michael Thomas blow the final whistle on an era? - FORGIVE the dewy eyes but miracles do happen. I saw one happen, 20 years ago next Tuesday. > more

Berger: love in a time of bad and clumsy laws - JOHN Berger must surely be one of the world’s great lovers. At 82, he might crack a smile at the idea, but how... > more

Storyteller of very few words - POSTER art exploded in the inter-war period. > more

Even the bad times were good - IF you want an antidote for the grim budget, then this is it. Hunter Davies’s austerity anthology – Cold Meat And How to Disguise... > more

Battles in times past to keep the planners at bay - AN ATTEMPT to drive a motorway through Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park was one of the best things that... > more

How Che sowed the seeds of Cuba’s success - IT’S 1960, Havana, at the Cuban Ministry for Industry: it was one of the more surreal events John Paul Sartre had... > more

‘I’m sorry I ever left Hampstead’ - THE Dame is returning. Almost a decade after she left Hampstead, the celebrated novelist... > more

The madness of the annoyed - TIME was when anguished young men as well as fragrant but fraught blue-stockinged maidens beat a path to literary Hampstead and... > more

The tension that simmers in America’s backyard - AMERICA: land of the free and champion of democracy. Unless, of course, you are a small... > more

Asylum seeker who became English - A great deal has been written about the arrival of German Jews in the 1930s to this part of London. Intellectuals, all of them. > more

Duffy’s capacity to amaze - THE simple home truth behind Carol Ann Duffy becoming the first woman poet laureate is that the Prime Minister’s appointments... > more

Engels: ‘Grand Lama’ at No 122 - CAMDEN was the birthplace of modern communism.
From the British Museum Reading Room to Highgate Cemetery, from... > more

The son of a bitch who killed Sinatra - THE trouble with Hollywood memoirs is that they kill the fantasy of the films they produce, the ones you have grown up... > more

Journalist Campbell hacking into the world of crime fiction - POOR old ace crime reporter Laurie Lane’s life couldn’t get much worse. A hard-living hack... > more

Birthday Bard: Will and a way to successfully portray Othello - IF ever there was a Shakespeare play which needed celebrities to attract a large audience... > more

The shelf life of bookman, Norrie - THE first time I met Ian Norrie, Hampstead bookseller supreme and publishing world guru, he said: “I thought you were some... > more

A grim fairy story of north London folk - ON a winter’s night, in a desolate piece of heathland, a young woman’s body is heaved into a murky pond. It is an... > more

When we last hit the skids - SUDDEN snowfall in February and a frosty economic climate for all seasons are very 2009 concerns, but to the writer Alan Brownjohn... > more

One life, straddling 100 years of ‘isms’- WITH his debut novel, British-born author Rana Dasgupta threw his cards on the table as if to announce that here was one... > more

Kate’s detective wins her yet more prizes - PRESIDENT Obama grabbed the headlines by taking the Tesco Biography of the Year award at the 2009 Galaxy... > more

20 years on, ‘truth’ remains the goal - HAVE today’s Sky-savvy young football fans even heard of Sheffield Wednesday? The club and its forever haunted... > more

So who’s the greatest swindler of them all? - HE lies in an unmarked grave in Highgate Cemetery, unrecognised, unloved and forgotten. Yet when John Sadleir... > more

When poor Cockneys went to the country - IT is perhaps the greatest of the East End’s many great traditions: the annual trip in the late summer... > more

The unorthodox Russian game - RUSSIAN football – wasn’t that all about tricky awayday assignments on frozen pitches with orange balls... > more

Bet on a long-time dead cert - A LOVEABLE Irish rogue, an upmarket brothel keeper, and the undisputed greatest racehorse of all time are the ingredients... > more

Diary of a Blair regime nobody - MULLIN’S brazen, bare-faced, brass-necked, shameless Harpies’ voice with its dollop of unpardonable chutzpah has... > more

Tips in favour of a work-life balance - SHE locked the door behind her in the vague hope she would not be heard, and sobbed uncontrollably. > more

‘Here’s my first novel – but my next one will be better’ - THE time: the bleak early 1940s, when the Allies appeared to be losing the war... > more

Bedtime reading from Pom Pom, Storm and Minxy - IF it is sex, money and ideas that make the world go round, then there is a distinct lack of loot at the moment...>more

Visionary architect or destroyer of picture book England? - HIS critics blame him for the destruction of English urban life, the man who turned our pretty, picture...>more

Harry’s White Hart (memory) Lane - OH, Spurs are on their way to Wembley... and although Harry Redknapp’s charges are the underdogs for this Sunday’s... > more

A virtuosity shaped by migration - AT the age of seven, when her toes could touch the pedals, Eva Hoffman started piano lessons. A quiet lady called Mrs Witeszczak ...>more

Did you ever hear such a thing in your life? - JACK and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water… or did they? Children have long been taught this traditional nursery...>more

Reflections on the illusions of battle - HAMISH Henderson is not automatically linked with Alun Lewis, Keith Douglas and Vernon Scannell as among the most ...>more

Science genius who discovered ancient China had the answers - TO anyone lucky enough to hear him talk about the history of science in China, Joseph Needham ...>more

Re-inhabiting a past life - WHEN the poet Dannie Abse decided to write a daily journal following the death of his wife Joan, he hoped it would provide an emotional ...>more

A classic novel before it was film - RICHARD Yates was transparently learning his craft in his first novel, Revolutionary Road. It has the sensitivity of language and... > more

A tale to be taken with a pinch of garlic - PUT Highgate Cemetery Vampire into Google and you will have enormous fun reading endless entries for the... > more

If it’s Sunday night, it’s Rety – difficult, yet we love him so - AMONG the behind-closed-doors world of poetry, the word Rety has become an adjective. > more

In times of Troubles, priest who fought for parishioners - IF there is an important autobiography to come out of the recent “Irish Troubles”, this is it.> more

Stellar Sybil, outspoken sage of stage - SYBIL Thorndike was a woman for all seasons. In 68 years she appeared in more than 300 plays and was constantly... > more

Sheer vindictiveness keeps this sick old rascal Ronnie Biggs inside - RONNIE was just a rascal, one of the chaps who got in a little too deep and was cheeky enough... > more

The Crafty Cockey - Eric Bristow - THE riveting victory of Ted “The Count” Hankey over Tony “Silverback” O’Shea in the BDO World Championship Finals on...> more

Structural cracks in the credit system- WHO is to blame for the credit crunch? Is it the banks? The regulators? The politicians? The market? Multinationals? > more

Top of the tyrants: who’s the greatest dictator of them all? - JOE Stalin has been resurrected in Russia, where he just been voted the country’s third-greatest... > more

Strictly misses the point- NEVER mind all those ball gowns and improbable leotards you see on Strictly Come Dancing and the mumbo-jumbo that comes out of... > more

Casting light on the city chick, the romantic and the rebel - WITH the slogan “Illuminating words”, independent publishers Tall-Lighthouse do just that, with a stable... > more

Italian who carries England’s hopes for World Cup glory - ACCORDING to the preface, Mark Ryan “first thought about writing this book in March 2008”. I am... > more

Foot in mouth: occupational disease of our politicians - GORDON Brown made a faux pas during question time in the House of Commons last week, and had... > more

Murder most foul among East Enders - COR blimey, murderous events on the streets of the East End? Sounds like perfect Christmas reading. East End Murders... > more

Perilous life of a Victorian explorer - THE forgotten life of an Amazonian adventurer whose trips into the rainforest in the 1800s helped bolster... > more

An improbable musical genius - HE was a maestro, an impresario with a formidable presence and passion for music who could bring a great... > more

Growing up with Woolfs - FIVE years ago, Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood, two editors at John Murray, the publishers of Lord Byron and Sir John Betjeman... > more

War on the front line and life on the home front - AS he walked home from Hampstead to Highgate along the Spaniards Lane, and gazed out across... > more

Our champ who took on the Yank NO offence to the population of the town in Hampshire
which prides itself on an annual air show and its nearby military... > more

Winston’s distant mother - WINSTON Churchill always claimed that he was the political heir of his father, the brilliant but maverick Lord Randolph... > more

Clues and the blues in life of star Humph - IF you haven’t played a trumpet, a trombone or even a tuba it’s difficult to appreciate how holding a brass... > more

Stories from the City and tales from the underground - JAMES Curtis was a figure known in the pubs along Kilburn High Road, always happy to pass the time... > more

My stellar son and parents who didn’t follow the script - IT wasn’t easy being an overly sensitive young teenager trying to bring up two starstruck parents on his own... > more

It’s jazz, but if you have to ask... - LOUIS Armstrong, asked to define jazz, famously said: “If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand anyway." Musical definitions, in... > more

Take a trolley bus ride to Lyons corner house - RICHARD Tames remembers riding on a trolleybus, shopping in Gamage’s, drinking from London street fountains... > more

Where were you when the world was ransacked by the rich and greedy? WHEN I told a group of Americans in Alaska that I had dived under a hedge as a kid when a... > more

Bohemian rhapsody: a birds eye view of ‘Italian’ Bloomsbury- FROM a perch in the front room, the owl would glower silently at any one who entered, descending from... > more

Masud Khan - inside the mind of a brilliant, flawed analyst - OUTRAGEOUS analyst, Muslim, alcoholic, genius, snob, serial adulterer, and anti-Semite: this... > more

Alexei has a kinda change of heart - BEFORE Alexei Sayle was an author, film actor and columnist, he was a stand-up comic. Today, as his fifth book, Mister... > more

Author’s Suspicions clinch a top award - AS a journalist and former national newspaper literary editor, Kate Summerscale knows the inside secret score and the hassle... > more