Peter Conrad
Inferno by Dan Brown - review
Infernal prose flows again from the bat-thronged belfry of Dan Brown's demented brain I used to think that Dan Brown was merely bad. Now, after reading the latest version of the apocalyptic thriller he rewrites every few years, I suspect he might be mad
Nijinsky: A Life by Lucy Moore - review
A biography of Nijinsky wisely parallels his dancing with his sexual development How can we separate the dancer from the dance? Nijinsky's art was a vanishing act, and his mystique depended on gestures that lasted only a second, like his leap through a w
Falling Upwards by Richard Holmes - review
A study of the romantic pioneers of hot-air ballooning provides plenty of uplifting moments for the jaded modern air passenger Richard Holmes has twice defined himself in the subtitles of his books as "a romantic biographer", which in his case means more
Levels of Life by Julian Barnes - review
Julian Barnes's semi-biographical book about his wife Pat Kavanagh's death is both painfully honest and typically artful This little book has a purpose that is weightily monumental: it's a Taj Mahal made of paper not white marble. Shah Jahan built the m
David Bowie is - review
" David Bowie is ": the title is an unfinished sentence, which gives the verb a subject but no object, and it suggests that Bowie is everything and perhaps nothing, a whirligig of dressed-up personae, not a person. To begin with, he isn't even David Bowie
George Bellows: Modern American Life - review
American painting began with the contemplation of virgin nature: the forested clefts of the Hudson valley, the radiant, skyscraping heights of the Rocky mountains. But by the end of the 19th century this idyll had been spoiled by fuming, stewing industria
The Silence of Animals by John Gray - review
John Gray's latest work finds him unimpressed as ever with the ascent of man "The more I see of men," said Mme de Sta
