
Charlie Connelly
02 October 2024
Amália Rodrigues, the voice of fado and the soul of Portugal

The biggest-selling Portuguese music artist in history was instrumental in popularising the fado genre worldwide
Read the full article02 October 2024
Sally Rooney’s grandmaster move in literary fiction

Daring choices are vindicated in the writer’s brilliant new novel about a chess player, his brother and their family
Read the full article25 September 2024
Homage to Ruritania

The surprising origins of The Prisoner of Zenda, the ultimate swashbuckling tale of derring-do
Read the full article25 September 2024
Simone Signoret, the Oscar-winning icon who embraced age with grace

The trailblazing French actress defied Hollywood’s ageism to win an Academy Award for Room at the Top
Read the full article18 September 2024
The writer with a lifelong fascination with the nature of memory

A combination of deep thinking, a fascination with the everyday and a playful wit produced some of the most groundbreaking fiction of the 20th century
Read the full article18 September 2024
Autumn, the season for poets

We are once again entering a time of introspection and reminiscence as the long summer days give way to mists and mellow fruitfulness
Read the full article11 September 2024
The director who trusted his convictions

The Frenchman relished each project with its opportunity for reinvention, presenting a new challenge each time
Read the full article11 September 2024
Letters to a dickhead

An intelligent and fearless French novel of clear-eyed anger digs deep into contemporary morality
Read the full article04 September 2024
The idiosyncratic empress entirely unsuited to the role

One of the first women of celebrity in the modern sense of the word, Elisabeth of Austria was a gifted, vibrant woman imprisoned by contemporary etiquette
Read the full article04 September 2024
Plinths of darkness

Three architects pitch monuments to massacres in Lara Haworth’s debut novel about who gets to write history
Read the full article28 August 2024
The 20th century's master of storytelling

The director emerged from a well-trodden European emigration narrative to become a Zelig-like figure in the early history of modern popular culture
Read the full article28 August 2024
A plan that had plenty of hitches

Jeff Young’s Wild Twin is an uncompromisingly honest memoir of a lost teenage soul, of adventure, rebellion and the echoes of memory
Read the full article21 August 2024
The unlikely virtuoso who made the harmonica sing

Few things in music sound more like the punchline to a joke than a millionaire mouth organist, but Thielemans forged a brilliantly idiosyncratic path
Read the full article21 August 2024
Borders and bigotry in Europe’s far north

Hanna Pylväinen’s new novel is a haunting tale of love and conflict set in the Sápmi lands of northern Europe in the 19th century
Read the full article07 August 2024
The poet who sang about the dark times

Brecht lived through some of Europe’s darkest times yet still produced some of the 20th century’s boldest, most influential and epoch-defining theatre
Read the full article07 August 2024
The best 10 books since Brexit, part two

From the Dutch golden age through Manchester and Margate to the place where three European nations meet; a selection of unmissable reads
Read the full article31 July 2024
The unlikely vanguard of a cultural revolution

With his gramophone recordings, the Italian transcended the closed world of performance to become a global phenomenon
Read the full article31 July 2024
The best books since Brexit, part one

As the New European approaches a landmark, we look back at some of the gems – from expansive histories to personal stories – uncovered on these pages since 2016
Read the full article24 July 2024
The fire in Erich Kästner

The writer who risked his life to watch his own books burned by Nazis – so he could write about it
Read the full article24 July 2024
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: The Conrad of the air

He was only truly fulfilled when either in the air or writing about being in the air
Read the full article17 July 2024
Cécile Aubry: The actress who dreamed up Belle et Sébastien

‘The Gay Girl from Gaul’ had a brief, traumatic – and wet – experience of stardom
Read the full article17 July 2024
Stamp of disapproval

Self-service libraries with automated kiosks are taking over. But we lose librarians at our peril
Read the full article10 July 2024
Ivana Trump: The Czech who chased the American dream

With an eye for the smallest detail as well as the big picture, Trump became a vital driving force of the family business empire
Read the full article10 July 2024
Ismail Kadare, the voice of Albania

Writing during the turbulent regime of Enver Hoxha led the writer into compromise – as well as greatness
Read the full article03 July 2024
The revolutionary who changed the world of design forever

The common portrayal as a humourless Teuton could not have been further from a man whose work was infused with nuance, warmth and joy
Read the full article03 July 2024
The books of summer

From remote Spain to the US Midwest via the Eternal City and Moominland, here are 10 must-reads for those long, warm days ahead
Read the full article26 June 2024
The unlikely screen god

The advent of sound signalled the end of the silent movie star's career
Read the full article26 June 2024
Kathleen Jamie’s ‘Cairn’ is poetry in prose

The Scottish writer infuses quiet moments with beauty and profundity. Her new book is so good it’s almost impossible to let it go
Read the full article19 June 2024
The dreamer who looked to the stars

The German-American science writer had an ability to straddle effortlessly the worlds of advanced engineering and mass popular culture
Read the full article19 June 2024
Vote for election fiction

Ahead of July 4, why not read about far more thrilling polls courtesy of Dickens, Wodehouse, Trollope… and even Jeffrey Archer?
Read the full article12 June 2024
The actor who gave Nazis nuance

Ingrid Bergman said the German possessed more charm in his little finger than most men had in their whole body
Read the full article12 June 2024
Kicking off a football revolution

A choice of reading for the Euros includes the man who prescribed a cure for English football’s problems, a generation early
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