Andrew O’Hagan

Riffraff

Billy Wilder’s evolution from interwar stylist to hard-bitten realist.

Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna

edited by Noah Isenberg and translated from the German by Shelley Frisch

Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge

by Joseph McBride

February 24, 2022 issue

In the Act of Living

Hermione Lee, in her new biography of Tom Stoppard, has given shape to his quest for meaning, consciousness, history, and goodness.

Tom Stoppard: A Life

by Hermione Lee

April 29, 2021 issue

Singing the Back Streets

‘Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren’ by Colin Asher

Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren

by Colin Asher

November 7, 2019 issue

Hans Rausing arriving at the West London Magistrates’ Court, July 2012

A Deep Dark Place

Mayhem

by Sigrid Rausing

April 19, 2018 issue

Macbeth Without Evil

Macbeth

a film directed by Justin Kurzel

December 17, 2015 issue

James Boswell, 1765; portrait by George Willison

He Changed the Game and Dared to Know

Boswell’s Enlightenment

by Robert Zaretsky

June 4, 2015 issue

William S. Burroughs in the Hotel Villa Mouniria Garden, Tangier, 1961; from Patricia Allmer and John Sears’s Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs, published by Prestel

The Dark Dreams of William Burroughs

Call Me Burroughs: A Life

by Barry Miles

Kill Your Darlings

a film directed by John Krokidas

October 9, 2014 issue

Detail from Albrecht Dürer’s Saint Jerome Penitent in the Wilderness, 1496/1497; from the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition ‘Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina,’ from the exhibition reviewed by Andrew Butterfield in this issue.

‘Maggie’

June 20, 2013 issue

‘Beat Women’: An Exchange

June 6, 2013 issue

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher launching the Conservative manifesto on the Isle of Wight, May 1983

Maggie

The moral legacy of Margaret Thatcher

May 23, 2013 issue

Letter

Hugh Thomas

‘Maggie’

June 20, 2013 issue

William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, photographed by Allen Ginsberg in his East Village living room, 1953; from ‘Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg,’ an exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art and on view at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery until April 6, 2013. The catalog includes an essay by Sarah Greenough and is published by the National Gallery and DelMonico Books/Prestel.

Kerouac Crosses the Line

‘On the Road,’ again

On the Road

a film directed by Walter Salles

The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac

by Joyce Johnson

March 21, 2013 issue

Exchange

Joyce Johnson

‘Beat Women’: An Exchange

June 6, 2013 issue

William Styron with his daughter Alexandra, Roxbury, Connecticut, January 1972

Styron’s Choice

Reading My Father: A Memoir

by Alexandra Styron

The Suicide Run: Five Tales of the Marine Corps

by William Styron

September 29, 2011 issue

E.M. Forster: The Story of Affection

A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster

by Wendy Moffat

Concerning E.M. Forster

by Frank Kermode

October 14, 2010 issue

The 'Blinking Sam' portrait of Samuel Johnson by Joshua Reynolds, 1775; on view in the exhibition 'Samuel Johnson: Literary Giant of the 18th Century,' at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, through September 21, 2009

The Powers of Dr. Johnson

Samuel Johnson: A Biography

by Peter Martin

Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings

edited by Peter Martin

Samuel Johnson: The Struggle

by Jeffrey Meyers

Samuel Johnson: A Life

by David Nokes

October 8, 2009 issue

Letter

Jeffrey Meyers

In Spanking Company

January 14, 2010 issue

John le Carré at the Palestinian martyrs’ cemetery, Beirut, Lebanon, 1983; photograph by Don McCullin

The Weather Makers

A Most Wanted Man

by John le Carré

May 28, 2009 issue

She Didn’t Play For Clyde

February 12, 2009 issue

What is Scotland?

The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History

by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Scotland: The Autobiography

by Rosemary Goring

The Oxford Companion to Scottish History

edited by Michael Lynch

Rainbow Kiss

a play by Simon Farquhar, directed by Will Frears

Black Watch

a play by Gregory Burke, directed by John Tiffany

See all reviewed works

See less

November 20, 2008 issue

Letter

Andrew O’Hagan

She Didn’t Play For Clyde

February 12, 2009 issue

Racing Against Reality

Falling Man

by Don DeLillo

June 28, 2007 issue

King Tony

The Queen

a film directed by Stephen Frears

November 16, 2006 issue

Word Wizard

Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary

by Henry Hitchings

April 27, 2006 issue