Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.
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‘As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a TikTok sensation.’ This is not – blessedly – how Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis begins. But almost exactly a century after his death, the Bohemian writer would be astonished to find that not only had his friend and literary executor
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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are hardly averse to taking matters to court. From their privacy tussles with the Mail on Sunday to the recent revelation that the taxpayer has forked out £300,000 over Prince Harry’s High Court challenge to the Home Office about his security arrangements when visiting the UK (he wanted to
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As the Princess of Wales draws plaudits for appearing at last night’s BAFTA awards in a subtly reused Alexander McQueen dress, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex continue to keep the world guessing as to whether they will appear at the Coronation in less than three months, the younger members of the Royal Family
His works are being censored decades after he might have disapproved
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In December 1996, audiences lining up to see a teen horror picture starring Drew Barrymore, from the director of A Nightmare on Elm Street, got the shock of their lives. Not only was Barrymore, the best-known actor in the film, murdered in the first 15 minutes, but the opening set-piece was arguably the most shocking moment
What happens when big-name actors veer off-script? Sit back and enjoy the chaos
The fighting between Roger Waters and David Gilmour has escalated with the Ukraine war
Philomena Cunk doesn’t delight in her stupidity, but sullenly presents it as the status quo
His latest, Knock at the Cabin , is more of the same
‘Someone makes a mistake, and we throw them away like a broken disposable camera’
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What a pity that memoirs don’t qualify for the Bad Sex in Literature prize. If they did, the description of how Prince Harry lost his virginity in Spare would surely qualify. That sordid tale has already passed into the annals of the least sexy writing about sex imaginable, with an older woman treating the young
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Those of us unlucky enough to have suffered through the six interminable hours of the Netflix Harry and Meghan series might now be regarding further updates from the less-than-dynamic duo with the same excitement that a dental patient looks forward to a round of root canal. But because the Sussexes have signed a multi-year deal
Compared to the movies Marvel puts out, they’ve tanked
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The Tomb Raider franchise seems to have been a graveyard for oddly overqualified people. Angelina Jolie played the character of Lara Croft twice after winning an Oscar, and subsequently Alicia Vikander gave the English aristocrat-turned-global adventurer a go. Neither left much of a mark – which is why it is all the more surprising that Fleabag creator and star
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Most men in their seventies, if they had to attend an arduous public event, would hope that their younger son’s presence would be the last thing they had to worry about. They might assume their offspring would be on hand to attend to their ageing parent; to offer comfort and support when required, and to
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As the furore about Prince Harry and Spare finally shows some signs of dying down – the book’s second week sales dropped 82 per cent, albeit with a wildly impressive 82,538 copies sold – it is time, once again, for his uncle to take centre stage. It seems as if the beleaguered and not-so-grand Duke of
Britain’s royal family sells books like nobody’s business
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The furore surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has made it easy to forget about the other younger members of the Royal Family. Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, have been relatively peripheral presences on the world stage until now. Damned by association with their disgraced father, the pair have
‘If you’re publishing mostly books by people of color and people who are gay, then where’s the diversity?’
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As the furore caused by the publication of Spare may – or may not – be dying down, there are some signs that the Royal Family are beginning to take back control of the media narrative, while refusing to make any public comment on Prince Harry’s revelations. Firstly, there was the announcement that Prince Charles
