Literature

Charismatic, handsome and with a great white shark’s feral cool, Anthony Bourdain was someone that everyone wanted to be. The chef, writer and TV presenter described the premise of his award-winning shows, No Reservations and Parts Unknown, as “I travel around the world, eat a lot of shit and basically do whatever the fuck I want.” They cemented his image as a gadabouting, kamikaze gourmand. Bourdain scarfed down andouillette and warthog anus, drank sun-bear bile and polished off the still-beating heart of a cobra, plonked into a shooter of Vietnamese firewater. He showed Barack Obama the correct way to slurp bún chả noodles on a steamy Hanoi side street, and

Sally Coulthard is cheerful and informative company on every leaf of this charming book

The Echoes is full of ghosts

Gliff is a different sort of project, but still one which reveals a desire to comment on contemporary culture

It is difficult to think of any area of modern life which is not anticipated in Faust

Lesley McDowell restores Lord Byron’s young lover and Mary Shelley’s step-sister to thrilling, palpitating life

Christopher Harding is more tolerant than I am and has a greater affinity with the seekers. But he has written a very interesting book as a result

He might be the greatest American novelist you’ve never heard of

Taking our mortality too seriously has been an increasing problem in our country. Thank heavens for the satirists who refuse to do so

The author was criticized for his revealing memoir about his late wife

The legendary British author’s attitude to the US is curiously double-edged