Books

The great European astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered more than eight comets. CHARLIE CONNELLY adds to her star-borne legacy “At the heavens there is no getting, for the high roofs of the opposite houses.” It was Boxing Day, 1822, when Caroline Herschel wrote these words in a letter to her nephew. She was 72 years old […]

Privilege can have drawbacks, as one member of the Italian aristocracy who wanted to carve out her own legacy found. CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on the life of Maria Teresa de Filippis. Maria Teresa de Filippis was the youngest of five siblings, the daughter of an Italian count who had made a fortune in engineering. She […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY profiles the great Dane Victor Borge. During the last year of the 20th century Victor Borge played 60 concerts. He was 90 years old. His material, a mixture of deft musical sketches and parodies interspersed with drily humorous quips and monologues, hadn’t changed much since he first began performing it in his native […]

charlie connelly attempts to buck the current trend for cultural stalemates, by picking the best.. and worst of 2019’s literary offerings. The Capital by Robert Menasse. Picture: MacLehose – Credit: Archant As politics grows ever more cutthroat, with grandmothers climbed over, ambition getting ever more naked and politicians competing with each other to tell the […]

Max Sebald was a writer who never experienced the horrors of the 20th century but in his writings he could never escape them. CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on his life. Author and academic professor WG ‘Max’ Sebald, 57, who was killed after his car was involved in a head-on collision with a lorry in December 2001. […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the life and tragic fate of Etty Hillesum, who turned down opportunities to go into hiding before her murder at Auschwitz. On a hot day in early September 1943 a train moved slowly across the flat Dutch countryside, clanking slowly along rails that shimmered in the heat. For the thousand Jews crammed […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY looks back on the life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. Soviet politician Lavrentiy Beria with Josef Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, USSR, 1930s. Beria (1899-1953) was First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party during the 1930s. He began working in the security apparatus in the early 1920s and went (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images) […]

The original publication of The War of the Worlds was like a bombshell to an angst-ridden Britain suspicious of its neighbours. Now, why might the BBC consider a new adaption so timely? CHARLIE CONNELLY reports There’s never really a wrong time to revive H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Whenever a new adaptation comes […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY assesses the dramatic life of Vera Karalli and finds more to it than her apparent connection to one of the 20th century’s most intriguing killings The death of Grigori Rasputin, spiritual adviser to the Russian Tsar Nicholas and a particular favourite of the Tsarina Alexandra, in St Petersburg on December 30, 1916, is […]

Charlie Connelly delves into the life of Alexey Stakhanov, Stalin’s superstar miner. The evening of August 30, 1935, was a warm and muggy one in eastern Ukraine when Alexey Stakhanov left his small flat in Kadievka and headed for the night shift at the Tsentralnaya-Irmino mine. The mine had been working round the clock since […]

Literary gongs seldom court much controversy. But, as CHARLIE CONNELLY explains, this year is different Polish author Olga Tokarczuk arrives prior to a press conference and a lecture after she was awarded with the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize. (Photo by Sascha Schuermann / AFP) (Photo by SASCHA SCHUERMANN/AFP via Getty Images) – Credit: AFP via […]

CHARLIE connelly on the death of a poet who chronicled his city’s epic story. There was something terribly poignant about how Ciaran Carson, who died on October 6, left us just when Northern Ireland was anchored to the top of the British news agenda for the first time in two decades. Diagnosed with terminal lung […]

Literature has been slow to reflect the awful onslaught of Alzheimer’s. But a new book does just that, and prompts a very personal response from CHARLIE CONNELLY. Charlie Connelly’s father, George. Picture: Charlie Connelly – Credit: Archant For a condition responsible for almost one in eight deaths in England and Wales each year Alzheimer’s remains […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an angry book depicting life on the margins of the UK, which should be classed as one of the most important works of post-Brexit literature “It won’t be long before the statues start moving,” was a familiar refrain in Ireland when the global recession hit in 2008. Miraculous visions always increase during […]

Françoise Sagan lived an ostentatious and radical lifestyle when she was not working on a collection of dozens of plays, novels, and short stories, CHARLIE CONNELLY reports. On the afternoon of September 14, 1957, Françoise Sagan was at the wheel of her Aston Martin barrelling along the D448 just outside Paris. Egged on by the […]

The recent row over Enid Blyton is nothing new, says Charlie Connelly. The children’s author was always controversial. Enid Blyton isn’t often in the news these days, not least because it’s more than half a century since her death in 1968 at the age of 71. She was however at the centre of a kerfuffle […]

Charlie Connelly reports on Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick, and how two trips to Europe reflected his changing fortunes. Moby Dick is cited by many respected literary eggheads as the Great American Novel. Like many novels dubbed ‘great’, not many people have read it all the way through, which considering it’s a blend of […]

The new prime minister is part of a long – and largely undistinguished – line of politicians who have turned their hand to fiction. CHARLIE CONNELLY suggests a sense of entitlement might be behind the trend. Boris Johnson’s many current faults and past scandals have already been forensically – and necessarily – dissected, but there […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY warns that writing may become the preserve of the elite if Britain doesn’t value and support its authors in an ever more precarious trade. Ireland has always had a more enlightened attitude to its writers and artists than the UK and this was emphasised last week by the announcement from the Irish minister […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an astonishing travel book that tracks the continent’s myths and sagas and links its past with its present. On the day after the 2016 referendum Nicholas Jubber was sitting in a horse-drawn carriage clopping towards the fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein in Bavaria with his wife, child and a man from Düsseldorf who […]

From Shakespeare to Sherlock Holmes, howlers have long haunted writers. CHARLIE CONNELLY reports. Every author will have experienced an icy lurch in their stomach when they read of Naomi Wolf’s recent travails over her new book Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love, which explores the ways in which the British establishment during the […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on pair of new releases, their contrasting receptions and authors, and what they tell us about Britain today. Author Kerry Hudson has published the “astonishing” tale of childhood poverty, Lowborn. Photo: Nick Tucker – Credit: Archant It’s not often I enjoy seeing an author getting an absolute savaging from reviewers but the way […]

Its author might now be deeply unfashionable, but that shouldn’t put us off The Jungle Book, says CHARLIE CONNELLY. The British poet, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), is known for his verse collections and animal stories, including the Jungle Books and Just So Stories. Picture: National Portrait Gallery, London. – Credit: Bettmann Archive Who among us doesn’t […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY finds a true sense of patriotism in a collection of poems that tries to wrest that word back from nationalists. Chinese Spring by Christopher New will be published later this month to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. – Credit: Archant One of the more frustrating aspects of the […]

Almost by chance, CHARLIE CONNELLY finds himself engrossed in a timely novel set in a Paris beset by rising floods. Most of the books featured in these pages I buy myself. I hear about them, I buy them, I write about them. I’m also sent review copies of forthcoming books and if the right book […]

The folk musician whose memoir gets closer to the essence of Englishness than most Shirley Collins performs on stage during Supersonic Festival on June 24, 2018 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Katja Ogrin/Redferns) – Credit: Redferns Think about what fires and inspires great literature. Passion, intensity, strong characters, gripping stories, powerful imagery, a timelessness of […]

As a new initiative to encourage the reading of fast fiction is launched, CHARLIE CONNELLY sings the praises of short-form literature. ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ is the famous response attributed to Ernest Hemingway when challenged to write an entire story in six words. This was the ultimate short story and the quickest of […]

Come rain or shine, CHARLIE CONNELLY has swum in the Channel every day since last summer. He explains how it can boost your energy and self-esteem. If you look closely at the photograph above, you’ll see that between the frost-covered shingle and those majestic massing clouds there’s a tiny speck of a person. That person […]