Promises Lovers Make When It Gets Late, by Darian Leader (Faber & Faber, £7.99 in UK)"A lover's promise and a condom are really quite similar: both of them introduce something that wasn't there before and both …Sat Jan 02 1999 - 00:00
The Green Mile, by Stephen King (Orion, £10.99 in UK)In this good-versus-evil Death Row thriller, first published in monthly instalments two years ago, Stephen King showed that he…Sat Jan 02 1999 - 00:00
Continuing our critics' fast-forward through the year aheadDistinguished mezzo-soprano Ann Murray visits the NCH on January 15th on a rare visit here to sing Berlioz's Les Nuits d'Ete (…Sat Jan 02 1999 - 00:00
Row, row, row your canoeThe New Oxford Book of Children's Verse, edited by Neil Philip (Oxford, no price given)Sat Dec 05 1998 - 00:00
Voices of the damaged angelsThere are several essential, and probably insoluble, mysteries about the now-defunct practice of castrating boys at puberty in…Sat Nov 21 1998 - 00:00
Off The Map: Bicycling across Siberia, by Mark Jenkins (Hale, £9.99 in UK)A group of patently insane individuals - three Americans, four Russians - sets off from the Sea of Japan to cycle across Siberia…Sat Nov 14 1998 - 00:00
Janacek's Operas, by John Tyrrell (Faber & Faber, £17.50 in UK)The Czech composer Leos Janacek was an incorrigible letter-writer, and this collection of "the most important documents relating…Sat Nov 14 1998 - 00:00
John Tavener: Glimpses of Paradise, by Geoffrey Haydon (Indigo, £7.99 in UK)The man whose music has veered from the populist (his 1968 work The Whale was taken up by the Beatles, who financed a recording…Sat Nov 14 1998 - 00:00
Portraits in a dying lightA woman silhouetted against the lonely landscape of the north shore of Lake Superior; a child who, banished to play outdoors …Sat Nov 14 1998 - 00:00
An Irishwoman's DiaryPicture this: a Turkish painting. Go on - close your eyes for a second, and see what sort of image floats into the darknessMon Nov 09 1998 - 00:00
John Hume, by Paul Routledge (HarperCollins, £8.99 in UK)Political biographies are always likely to be overtaken by events, and the brave-but-downbeat ending of this one - neither a …Sat Nov 07 1998 - 00:00
Elizabeth Longford, by Frances Makower (Hodder & Stoughton, £6.99 in UK)It's difficult to imagine what sort of interest this ultra-polite life of an ultra-conservative (with a small "c", but still) …Sat Nov 07 1998 - 00:00
A jolly journey with Sir GeorgThere are so many reasons to recommend this hugely entertaining memoir that it's hard to know where to begin: the charismatic…Sat Nov 07 1998 - 00:00
Bruno Bettelheim: The Other Side of Madness, by Nina Sutton (Duckworth, £16.95 in UK)This enormous biography - more than 500 paperback pages - traces the life and work of the man who has probably had more influence…Sat Nov 07 1998 - 00:00
A Monk Swimming, by Malachy McCourt (Harper Collins, £11.99 in UK)So here it is - Angela's Ashes Volume Two, by Frank McCourt's younger brother Malachy, who was brought to the US by his loving…Sat Nov 07 1998 - 00:00
Big Women, by Fay Weldon (Flamingo, £6.99 in UK)An idea is born in a suburban London kitchen one night as a group of women dance naked around the room and decide to form a publishing…Sat Oct 24 1998 - 01:00
A headline in his own lunchtimeA headline in his own lunchtime, William Deedes is about as near to legendary as a journalist can become; familiar to many as…Sat Oct 24 1998 - 01:00
Van Morrison: Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, by John Collis (Warner Books, £7.99 in UK)An unpromising title for what looks, on the face of it, like an unpromising projectSat Oct 24 1998 - 01:00
The Footnote, by Anthony Grafton (Faber & Faber, £7.99 in UK)If a historian has the imagination to propose a history of the bits at the bottoms of the page, you'd be entitled to suppose …Sat Oct 24 1998 - 01:00
The Sewing Circle: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women, by Axel Madsen (Robson Books, £8.99 in UK)If many of the most macho males in Hollywood history have been proven to be gay, does it follow that many of the sexiest sirens…Sat Oct 24 1998 - 01:00
News of a Kidnapping, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Penguin, £6.99 in UK)More realist than magic, News of a Kidnapping traces the events surrounding the abduction of ten people, mostly journalists, …Sat Oct 17 1998 - 01:00
Unbowed: An Algerian Woman Confronts Islamic Fundamentalism, by Khal ida Messaoudi in interviews with Elisabeth Schemla, trans. Anne C. Villa (University of Philadelphia Press, $14.95)Just look at the heading on this - interviewed by, translated by: such are the contortions necessary to allow an Algerian feminist…Sat Oct 17 1998 - 01:00
Moab is My Washpot, by Stephen Fry (Arrow, £6.99 in UK)Like its author, this autobiography is amiable and witty, but as to why it took over the bestseller list when it came out in …Sat Oct 17 1998 - 01:00
An Instance of the Fingerpost, by Iain Pears (Vintage, £7.99 in UK)This hefty historical thriller wades deep into the muddy waters of Restoration London to tell the usual dastardly tale of betrayal…Sat Oct 17 1998 - 01:00
Holy Pictures, by Clare Boylan (Abacus, £6.99 in UK)It has always been a tricky business, being fourteen, but for Nan Cantwell, caught between the transmogrified world of the nuns…Sat Oct 17 1998 - 01:00
Falling for a Dancer, by Deirdre Purcell (Pan, £5.99 in UK)Oh, yes, and in the nick of time, too: for the BBC drama series has just come to an end, and if you've been hooked on the torrid…Sat Oct 17 1998 - 01:00
The Last Word, edited by Mick O'Hare (Oxford, £7.99 in UK)This collection of questions and answers from the popular column which features on the last page of New Scientist magazine every…Sat Oct 10 1998 - 01:00
Solstice, by Joyce Carol Oates (Virago, £6.99 in UK)First published in 1985, this tale of two women - Monica, a mild-mannered divorcee who is trying to rebuild her life as a teacher…Sat Oct 10 1998 - 01:00
In the land of snakes and jiggasEverybody knows the title, but if you've never read this enchanting book, do it nowSat Oct 10 1998 - 01:00
Like Mother, and Then Again, by Jenny Diski (Granta, £6.99 in UK)In these two slim novels, first published in 1988 and 1990 respectively, Jenny Diski takes the notion of the family, shatters…Sat Sept 19 1998 - 01:00
. . . And a cast of thousandsThis superb biography opens on a hillside in California in high summer, where a film crew and 300 extras dressed as ancient Romans…Sat Sept 19 1998 - 01:00
The Children and The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton (Virago, each £6.99 in UK)Nabokov pulled it off in spectacular fashion in Lolita; Edith Wharton is rather less successful with her 1928 study of the infatuation…Sat Sept 19 1998 - 01:00
Strains of unheard musicGrace Notes, by Bernard McLaverty, read by Frances Tomelty (HarperCollins, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)Sat Sept 05 1998 - 01:00
Dismantling Mr Doyle, by James Ryan (Phoenix, £6.99 in UK)Mr Doyle keeps the garden of the pristine family bungalow in good shape and is on the board of the yacht club; Mrs Doyle keeps…Sat Aug 29 1998 - 01:00
The glory that is GreeceThe country that is now known as Greece is almost totally alien to us; we imagine we understand it because we have been fed on…Sat Aug 29 1998 - 01:00
Valley of the Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann (Warner Books, £5.99 in UK)What happens to bestsellers when they get old? They date, darling: at least, at the ripe old age of thirty-eight this onetime…Sat Aug 15 1998 - 01:00
The Diviners, by Margaret Lawrence (Virago, £6.99 in UK)Gazing out over the river which flows by her isolated farmhouse in the wilds of Canada, Morag Gunn rewinds her life in a series…Sat Aug 08 1998 - 01:00
Without a Hero, by T. Coraghessan Boyle (Granta, £6.99 in UK)First there were personal organisers: but what if there were a Professional Organiser who would come into your home and organise…Sat Aug 08 1998 - 01:00
Personal Demons, by Christopher Fowler (Serpent's Tail, £8.99 in UK)The ancient and venerable distinction between funny haha and funny peculiar is blurred and occasionally obliterated in these …Sat Aug 08 1998 - 01:00
Songs from the SouthThose who have seen him in action in Dublin will know that Jose Cura is not a man to square his shoulders, clutch his lapels …Fri Aug 07 1998 - 01:00
The Bay of Noon, by Shirley Hazzard (Virago, £6.99 in UK)Whichever way you try to sum up the plot of this elegant little novel, it turns out wrongSat Aug 01 1998 - 01:00
Jane Austen, by David Nokes (Fourth Estate, £9.99 in UK)On the face of it, the life of Jane Austen would seem to offer poor material for a gossipy biography - all those country clergymen…Sat Aug 01 1998 - 01:00
How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Botton (Picador, £5.99 in UK)Like many much-admired and little-read works of 20thcentury literature, Marcel Proust's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu is the …Sat Aug 01 1998 - 01:00
Walking at Sea Level, by Richard Kearney (Sceptre, £6.99 in UK)As this novel opens Jack Toland is the epitome of shabby, self-satisfied academic introspection; dug into a university post in…Sat Jul 25 1998 - 01:00
The Tortoise and the Hare, by ELizabeth Jenkins (Virago Modern Classics, £6.99 in UK)On the surface an unruffled chronicle of prosperous 1950s England, all tweeds and twinsets, permanent waves and watercress sandwiches…Sat Jul 25 1998 - 01:00
Courtesans and Fishcakes, by James Davidson (Fontana Press, £9.99 in UK)"The consuming passions of classical Athens", is the explanatory sub-title as James Davidson lifts the veil of discretion with…Sat Jul 25 1998 - 01:00
Good Behaviour and Time after Time, by Molly Keane (Abacus, £6.99 each in UK)Time has not dimmed the sharp edge of Molly Keane's wit, and these two studies of Big House behaviour are as acerbic and absorbing…Sat Jul 18 1998 - 01:00
A ladette long before her timeTallulah Bankhead was a ladette long before the term was even coined: loud, foulmouthed, a two-bottles-of-bourbon-a-day woman…Sat Jul 18 1998 - 01:00
Hollywood Lies, by David Ambrose (Pan, £5.99 in UK)David Ambrose began his career as a screenwriter for Orson Welles, and there is a distinctly Wellesian feel about these larger…Sat Jul 18 1998 - 01:00
Vegetarian 30-minute Turkish Cookbook, by Sarah Beattie (Thorsons, £6.99 in UK)You can't really recreate Turkish food without authentic ingredients - the proper cheese, decent olive oil, those little mild…Sat Jul 18 1998 - 01:00
