Books

Despite his establishment credentials the author John le Carré remained an outsider all his life, says CHARLIE CONNELLY, and was increasingly radicalised by Europe and Brexit.  There’s a broad perception that people become calmer politically as they grow older, the youthful firebrand activist gradually sensing the flames of radicalism dying down towards a dotage of faintly glowing […]

It was supposed to be the year to catch up on your reading. Don’t worry if you didn’t get through too many books. CHARLIE CONNELLY has some more to recommend… Sooo, have you read much this year? Like many people I had great ambitions of tucking in to some seriously weighty volumes once the lockdowns […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY recommends a handful of books to kick off your Christmas shopping. I know the C word is a touchy subject at the moment and it still feels a wee bit early to mention it somehow even though we’re in what’s undeniably December. Given that our winter hootenanny is likely to be reduced considerably […]

Jonathan Sale on the centenary of a courtroom drama centred on Rudyard Kipling’s celebrated poem, If, and the continuing power of the very iffy word itself. If – and it’s a big if – I’m any judge of groundbreaking literary cases, this month sees the centenary of a wonderful example of poetic justice in action:  Rudyard Kipling […]

A century after his first appearance, and with a new film out next month, which incarnation of the Belgian detective has been the finest? Benjamin Ivry exercises his little grey cells to assess the candidates. It is a classic puzzler worthy of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction… why some actors who have excelled in […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY pays tribute to the late Jan Morris, the author he credits with firing his passion for the continent. At the end of her book Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, published in 2001, Jan Morris speculated about an afterlife where, “I shall happily haunt the two places that have most happily haunted me. […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a surreal awards ceremony and some sublime literature. We’ve become so used to this year’s General Weirdness that a Booker Prize ceremony without the crescendo hubbub of increasingly pissed publishers barely raised an eyebrow. The General Weirdness dictated that this year the bunfight at the Guildhall would be replaced by an audience-free, […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the plight of bookshops during the pandemic, and how you can help them in their fight for survival. The other night I watched a feature-length documentary profiling New York’s independent bookshops and antiquarian book dealers. No, wait, come back, it was even more gripping than it sounds. The Booksellers features a delicious […]

Robert Louis Stevenson might be known for his gripping tales of adventure, but CHARLIE CONNELLY finds comfort in the gently flowing narrative of one of his lesser known works “We made a great stir in Antwerp docks,” would be a great opening line to any book, but it happens to be the first line of […]

Charlie Connelly on the perils and pitfalls of a much-missed fixture of the literary scene… the book signing. Last week something happened that felt like a communication from a different age: I was asked to appear at a literary festival. It’s not until next year and “obviously a lot of the details are TBC depending on […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a new book covering 2,000 years of English history at breakneck speed, right up to a gloomy ending in the present day…but with some cause for cautious optimism. English politicians have always displayed a particular interest in history. Maybe it’s a narcissistic thing, feeling that by stepping up to public office they […]

The city has been so scrutinised it is difficult to find much more new to say about it. But an enthralling new book has succeeded in this task, says CHARLIE CONNELLY. The early days of the coronavirus seem a long time ago now. Streets fell empty as we hunkered down, shops and businesses closed and […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an atmospheric new book  – written before the pandemic – which perfectly captures the current national mood. This is, we’re told, the year of the staycation. Thanks to the coronavirus it’s been a word in common usage this year as those usually in a position to holiday abroad have their wings clipped […]

Among the many abiding images from Britain in 2020 some of the most memorable are of the packed summer crowds on the beach at Durdle Door in Dorset. Scorching temperatures combined with the cancellation of holidays abroad to have people throwing social distancing to the breeze and flocking in their thousands to the coast. The […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY comes up with the first half of his rundown of the top 20.

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a new novel about a Stasi agent immersed in the chilling oppression of the East German state, right up until its final moments. A few years ago I was in Leipzig with a film crew. We were being taken around the city by a local fixer called Tomas, a giant of a […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on how the great author ended up at his final resting place, far from where he had hoped to be. ‘Charles Dickens, the great American romancer, died yesterday of apoplexy. He was the Walter Scott of America.’ As bad takes go, that report of the demise of the great novelist that appeared in […]

With the virus restrictions preventing more than a brief daily stroll, CHARLIE CONNELLY goes in search of books that provide a bit more of a sense of journey. I miss walking. I mean, I get out once a day for a mooch about but it’s the same short route every time, nodding at the same […]

A chance lockdown discovery leads CHARLIE CONNELLY down memory lane to the Danish castle that inspired the Bard. We all have little jobs around the house that we’ve planning to get around to – for years in some cases. One of mine was going through a big box of old DVDs that needed sorting out […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a new book which takes us to a much storied corner of Europe. Confinement breeds wanderlust. If the current situation is teaching us anything positive it’s how to appreciate freedoms of which we thought practically nothing before, from seeing pasta on the shelves in a supermarket to throwing some clothes into a […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY reviews Graham Swift’s latest novel, a touching evocation of the end of an epoch Crowds flocking to a coastal seaside resort in September 1980. – Credit: Archant Brighton was characteristically busy during the summer season of 1959. As well as the ice creams, deck chairs and dodgems there was a huge choice of […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY explores the outbreak of the Spanish Flu and its reminder of mankind’s vulnerability. Red Cross volunteers fighting the Spanish flu epidemic in the United States, 1918. Photo: Apic/Getty Images. – Credit: Archant At 1600 Clifton Road in Atlanta, Georgia, lives a centenarian. To visit, however, one must don full protective clothing and breathing […]

Charlie Connelly explores the life of Jean-Pierre Blanchard – the balloonist with an inflated sense of his own importance. The morning of January 7, 1785, dawned bright and clear and the coast of France was clearly visible across the Channel from the castle overlooking Dover. The Channel had always made England a fortress. Twenty one […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on Snow, Dog, Foot, a moving novel about living life alone in a complex existence high up in the Alps. Sometimes the life of a hermit can be a very appealing prospect. Not being answerable to anyone, living entirely self-sufficiently and feeling completely separated from the comings, goings and machinations of the rest […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY runs his eye over the ever-growing range of literary podcasts Back in the olden days of broadcasting you’d struggle to find much in the way of literary discussion or representation coming through the ether. On television you’d get the odd parasol-twirling adaptation of a Regency novel, jowly men in heavy tweed jackets sitting […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY profiles on the Frenchman rescued from obscurity by a chance discovery in a Normandy dairy shed. By the spring of 1929 Jean-Placide Mauclaire had grown used to being given old reels of film. The previous year he had opened Studio 28, an art house cinema in the Montmartre district of Paris that quickly […]

The great European astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered more than eight comets. CHARLIE CONNELLY adds to her star-borne legacy “At the heavens there is no getting, for the high roofs of the opposite houses.” It was Boxing Day, 1822, when Caroline Herschel wrote these words in a letter to her nephew. She was 72 years old […]

Privilege can have drawbacks, as one member of the Italian aristocracy who wanted to carve out her own legacy found. CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on the life of Maria Teresa de Filippis. Maria Teresa de Filippis was the youngest of five siblings, the daughter of an Italian count who had made a fortune in engineering. She […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY profiles the great Dane Victor Borge. During the last year of the 20th century Victor Borge played 60 concerts. He was 90 years old. His material, a mixture of deft musical sketches and parodies interspersed with drily humorous quips and monologues, hadn’t changed much since he first began performing it in his native […]

charlie connelly attempts to buck the current trend for cultural stalemates, by picking the best.. and worst of 2019’s literary offerings. The Capital by Robert Menasse. Picture: MacLehose – Credit: Archant As politics grows ever more cutthroat, with grandmothers climbed over, ambition getting ever more naked and politicians competing with each other to tell the […]

Max Sebald was a writer who never experienced the horrors of the 20th century but in his writings he could never escape them. CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on his life. Author and academic professor WG ‘Max’ Sebald, 57, who was killed after his car was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry in December 2001. […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the life and tragic fate of Etty Hillesum, who turned down opportunities to go into hiding before her murder at Auschwitz. On a hot day in early September 1943 a train moved slowly across the flat Dutch countryside, clanking slowly along rails that shimmered in the heat. For the thousand Jews crammed […]