Don Carlos and Company, by Christopher Morgan (CUP, £10.99 in UK)Even the most avid opera fan often has only the haziest notion of the true stories behind the tunes, it being difficult enough…Sat Nov 23 1996 - 00:00
The Granta Book of the Family (Granta, £8.99 in UK)Sometimes it's best to open an anthology with no prior warning; no introductions or explanations or justificationsSat Nov 23 1996 - 00:00
Pet who led opposition is jubilantSHE is a campaign organiser's dream: charming, charismatic and equipped with both impeccable intellectual credentials and apparently…Tue Nov 19 1996 - 00:00
XFiles: Shapes, by Ellen Sleiber (HarperCollins, £3.99 in UK)By Ellen Steiber based on the teleplay written by Marilyn Osborn after the television series created by Chris Carter, that is…Sat Nov 16 1996 - 00:00
Honi soit qui mal y pense"Erotic", like "comic", means different things to different people - as the cover illustration for this book, a reproduction …Sat Nov 16 1996 - 00:00
A Dream Date with Di and Other Pieces, by Mark Leyner (Picador, £6.99 in UK)You need to be ready for Mark LeynerSat Nov 16 1996 - 00:00
Two in the Bush, by Gerald Durrell (Harpercollins, £5.99 in UK)Now that Gerald Durrell has like so many of the animal species about which he wrote with such infectious enthusiasm - shuffled…Sat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
Looking for George: Life and Death in Romania, by Helena Drysdale (Picador, £6.99 in UK)Books which have the word, "Romania" in their titles need in this reader's experience, to be approached with extreme caution - …Sat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
The charm of the Anglo-French bourgeoise. Cross Channel, by Julian Barnes, read by Julian Barnes (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)Sat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
The Daily Telegraph book of Obituaries, edited by Hugh Massingberd (Pan, £6.99 in UK)Such is the callousness and cynicism of the journalistic profession that obituaries are something of a joke in the newspaper …Sat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
Who killed Jean Ellroy?HE is tall, softy spoken, warm but not effusive, confident without swaggerSat Nov 09 1996 - 00:00
Rumpole and the Angel of Death, by John Mortimer (Penguin, £5,99 in UK)There now exists a body of Rumpole stories which is almost as generously proportioned as that of the man himselfSat Nov 02 1996 - 00:00
LIEDER of the packTENORS have been the leaders of the classical male vocal pack for a long time now, grabbing all the best roles, cornering all…Fri Nov 01 1996 - 00:00
The Plastic Tomato Cutter, by Michael Curtin (Fourth Estate, £6.99 in UK)Bell ringing and Beatlemania jostle with snooker, unisex boutiques and tomato sandwiches in this chronicle of the coming of age…Sat Oct 26 1996 - 01:00
A Merry Dance Around The World, by Eric Newby (Picador, £6.99 in UK)I've always suspected, as they toil across a scorching steppe somewhere, laden down by backpacks and nourished only by a couple…Sat Oct 26 1996 - 01:00
Egg on Myac edited by Sean Power (Gill & Macmillan, £9.99)A sequel to Those Were The Days, a collection of childhood memories which was also edited by the Fianna Fail TD for Kildare and…Sat Oct 26 1996 - 01:00
Jane Austen: A Biography, by Elizabeth Jenkins (Indigo, £7.99 in UK)It's virtually impossible to avoid Jane Austen these days - at least, it's difficult to avoid glossy celluloid reworkings of …Sat Oct 26 1996 - 01:00
OPERAGeorges Bizej: "Carmen" Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and Chorus/Sinopoli/Larmore /Moser/Gheorghiu/Ramey Teldec, 0630-2672-2…Fri Oct 18 1996 - 01:00
The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman, by Andrzej Szczypiorski (Phoenix, £5,99 in UK)In the Warsaw of 1943 the arrest of a beautiful young Jewish widow is an almost everyday occurrenceSat Oct 12 1996 - 01:00
The Penguin Book of Women's Humour, edited by Regina Barreoa (Penguin, B.9in UK)Regina Barreca has trawled far and wide both in time and space to make this 600 page selection; thus she can find space for both…Sat Oct 12 1996 - 01:00
The Orlando Trilogy, by Isabel Colegate (Virago, £7.99 in UK)This elegant trilogy is so thoroughly steeped in the period in which it is set - it opens in the 1930s and closes a quarter of…Sat Oct 12 1996 - 01:00
U2 at the End of the World, by Bill Flanagan (Bantam Books, £7.99 in UK)Bill Flanagan had unprecedented access to Bono and the lads when he was researching this fly on the wall rockumentary, with the…Sat Oct 12 1996 - 01:00
Star Trek Memories, by William Shatner (Voyager, £6.99 in UK)"Paint those whatchamacallits purple!" they would cry, or send a team of researchers scurrying around LA in search of futuristic…Sat Oct 05 1996 - 01:00
Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland (Flamingo, £5.99 in UK)In this diary of a group of disaffected Microsoft employees who set up an independent software company, Coupland takes the hip…Sat Oct 05 1996 - 01:00
The Fan by Peter Abrahams (Warner, £5.99 in UK)This tale of a middle aged knife salesman (yes, knife salesman) and his obsession with a young black baseball player is a deeply…Sat Oct 05 1996 - 01:00
Bogart: In Search of My Father, by Stephen Bogart, with Gary Provost (Pan, £5.99 in UK)I'm not sure what purpose this sort of book is supposed to serve; is it supposed to make Stephen Bogart feel good about himself…Sat Sept 28 1996 - 01:00
A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas, by Virginia Woolf (Vintage, £5.99 in UK)"When one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable…Sat Sept 28 1996 - 01:00
Leonie, by Declan Burke Kennedy (Poolbeg, £6.99)Declan Burke Kennedy's story of two boys growing up in a small town in the Midlands during the 1960s shows a fine awareness of…Sat Sept 28 1996 - 01:00
Books and the BookerFOR some 15 years now the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness has meant the arrival, not just of dead leaves on the lawn, …Thu Sept 26 1996 - 01:00
Power Play: the life and times of Peter Hall, by Stephen Fay (Coronet, £7.99 in UK)Peter Hall being one of the most revered theatre and opera directors of our time, and his interpretations of Shakespeare, Beckett…Sat Sept 21 1996 - 01:00
Heartburn, by Nora Ephron (Virago, £6.99 in UK)This bittersweet little confection, which should be made inaccessible to all men and mandatory for all women, is apparently based…Sat Sept 21 1996 - 01:00
The Indoor Boy, by Antony Sher (Abacus, £6.99 in. UK)Leon Lipschitz is a bisexual Jewish white South African slob whose days and nights pass, for the most part, in a pleasant haze…Sat Sept 21 1996 - 01:00
Road to Tara: The Life of Margaret Mitchell, by Anne Edwards (Orion, £5.99 in UK)Margaret Mitchell was a vivacious, somewhat unremarkable Atlanta belle who, but for a leg injury that she sustained at the age…Sat Sept 14 1996 - 01:00
Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (Pan, £7.99 in UK)Tomorrow is another day, and no mistake and there seem to be an endless supply of tomorrows for this Sumo sized novel, which …Sat Sept 14 1996 - 01:00
Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, edited by A. Susan Williams and Richard Glyn Jones (Penguin, £8.99 in UK)Where, I wonder, is it located within the human psyche, the primeval drive to anthologise? At its most successful, it produces…Sat Sept 14 1996 - 01:00
The sphinx who had no secretFor a biography to be beautifully written from beginning to end and possess the sort of narrative momentum usually associated…Sat Sept 14 1996 - 01:00
Katya 22"BIRDS will sing as they fly above me where I am buried, and flowers will blossom there..Sat Sept 14 1996 - 01:00
From opera-hater to artistic directorBELFAST says "relax". The city bathed in the liquid light of an Indian summer afternoon, is at its most benevolentThu Sept 12 1996 - 01:00
The Penguin Book of International Gay Writing, edited by Mark Mitchell (Penguin, £11 in UK)This is an extremely classy anthology in every way - and it would need to be, to merit - that's the whopping price tag from its…Sat Sept 07 1996 - 01:00
Lenny Henry - A Biography, by Jonathan Margolis (Orion, £5,99 in UK)Why would a biography of Lenny Henry be even remotely interesting? Well, as Jonathan Margolis points out in his preface, as Britain…Sat Sept 07 1996 - 01:00
The Informers, by Bret Easton Ellis (Picador, £5.99 in UK)Never having read Ellis's notoriously violent American Psycho, I opened The Informers in all innocence and allowed its succession…Sat Sept 07 1996 - 01:00
Yesterday in the Back Lane, by Bernice Rubens (Abacus, £6.99 in UK)An intimate little novel sketched in careful shades of domestic grey, this is the story of Bronwen Davies, the schoolgirl who…Sat Sept 07 1996 - 01:00
Middlepost, by Antony Sher (Abacus, £7.99 in UK)In this, his debut novel, Antony Sher looks at the early settlers in his native South Africa from a decidedly unusual standpoint…Sat Aug 31 1996 - 01:00
Hons and Rebels, by Jessica Mittord (Indigo, £6.99 in UK)"Whenever I read the words `Peer's Daughter' in a headline, I know it's going to be something about one of you children," Mitford…Sat Aug 31 1996 - 01:00
De Niro, by John Parker (Vista, £5.99 in UK)OK, so we all loved Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter and Goodfellas and the Godfathers and we thought he was stunning in Raging…Sat Aug 31 1996 - 01:00
Bright stars of opera scheduled for seriesANYONE for tenors? According to tee Cork impresario Barra O Tuama, five of the brightest and best, if not yet best known, of …Thu Aug 29 1996 - 01:00
That Bad Woman, by Clare Boylan (Abacus, £5.99 in UK)The first thing that strikes you about these stories is how different they are, how separate; how sturdily and confidently they…Sat Aug 24 1996 - 01:00
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, by Richard Farina (Penguin, £7.99 in UK)The Sixties were always a bit hard to swallow, and now that they're being reheated and served up in all sorts of watered down…Sat Aug 24 1996 - 01:00
A Simple Story, by Elizabeth Inchbald (Penguin Classics, £6.99 in UK)Since it was first published in 1791, this elegant little novel has scarcely been out of print, and deservedly so, for its graceful…Sat Aug 24 1996 - 01:00
Marilyn: Norma Jeane, by Gloria Steinem (Vista, £5.99 in UK)If Marilyn Monroe were alive today, she would be 70 - "a shocking notion", according to Gloria SteinemSat Aug 17 1996 - 01:00
