An insightful account of America’s decline
Matt Purple’s Decline from the Top: Snapshots from America’s Crisis and Glimmers of Hope is a veritable joy to read
Books
Thursday
How Norman Mailer changed the face of biography
Thirty years ago, two intriguing books by the writer appeared just a few months apart
One hundred years of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy
The novel is as much a historical artifact as a work of fiction
Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous book exposes the horrors of celebrity
From Here to the Great Unknown is a tale about the intoxicating highs of the entertainment business, and a grim reminder of its abysmal lows
William Boyd’s latest novel is a smoothly gripping read
Gabriel’s Moon is the welcome return of one of Britain’s most reliably gripping novelists
This month in culture: January 2025
What to watch this month
Tuesday
Pat Barker dives into the first part of Aeschylus’ Oresteia
In The Voyage Home, she takes the infrastructure of legend and invests it with brutal realism
Imperfections in wood lead to perfection in carvings
In Ingrained, Callum Robinson’s aim is not simply to convey his love of working in his chosen way, but to evoke his craft warts and all
Saturday
Cello explains how music helped escape a certain death at Auschwitz
Exploring the relationship between the cello and its player, Kate Kennedy describes how Anita Lasker-Wallfisch’s musical gift enabled her to survive not just one but two Nazi death camps
Friday
Is Cormac McCarthy finished?
He has revealed that he himself was as flawed as any of his antagonists
Thursday
The Exchange will delight anyone seeking an impossible story made possible
This bizarre story would teeter on the incredible if it weren’t wholly true
The Spectator’s 2024 Books of the Year
Our writers weigh in
John le Carre’s son resurrects George Smiley
Karla’s Choice plays out as a clever, loving, sporadically tongue-in-cheek addition to the very best of John le Carré’s work
Reassessing Jerzy Kosinski
Why did the Being There writer’s life come to resemble a fairground rollercoaster?
The life and legacy of Mavis Gallant, an American in Paris
The author skewered the pretensions of would-be intellectual travelers
This month in culture: December 2024
What to watch this December
Monday
Bored of the rings: ‘wokery’ takes on Tolkien
The chief sin of Amazon’s The Rings of Power is that it is often simply dull
The powerful, brutal story of Polish resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka
In Agent Zo , Clare Mulley has written a thrilling, consistently tense page-turner
How music can be weaponized
Rebel Sounds is an uplifting compendium of hidden histories of those who have produced, performed and distributed music in times of war
The Position of Spoons is flawed but fascinating
Deborah Levy’s latest book is a sketch of the author in motion
