Classics
Top 10 books about tycoons
From rapacious businessmen to political power brokers, this literature extends from biographies of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Tiny Rowland to novels by Scott Fitzgerald and Preti Taneja
Peter Stothard
23, Nov, 2022 @12:00 PM
‘It was exciting to create these beastly, huge, grotesque women’: the authors gender-swapping the Greek myths
With its heroic female leads and men who long to be fathers, Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett’s new book looks at modern mores through an ancient lens
Sam Wollaston
07, Nov, 2022 @10:00 AM
Philologist Irene Vallejo: ‘Alexander the Great’s library was the first step towards the internet’
The Spanish writer on how Papyrus, her bestselling history of literature in the ancient world, changed her life at a difficult moment, and why it’s a mistake to undervalue books
John Self
05, Nov, 2022 @6:00 PM
Joyce Reynolds obituary
Classicist and academic who transformed our understanding of Roman imperial history
Tessa Dunlop
29, Sep, 2022 @4:10 PM
If looks could kill: how Medusa became a potent political meme
Medusa has become the default allegory for a hated woman in the public eye, but those who fear her lethal gaze would do well to revisit the myth
Natalie Haynes
09, Sep, 2022 @9:00 AM
Flash of genius: how a Cornish lighthouse inspired Virginia Woolf’s fictional icon
St Ives holiday home that planted the seed for English writer’s modernist masterpiece To the Lighthouse has now earned a historic plaque
David Barnett
24, Jul, 2022 @8:45 AM
Peter Mackridge obituary
Pioneer of Modern Greek studies in British universities fascinated by questions of language and identity
Roderick Beaton
11, Jul, 2022 @3:08 PM
‘First modern novel – oldest language’: Sanskrit translation of Don Quixote rescued from oblivion
Translated by two Kashmiri pandits from an C18th English translation in the 1930s, unique work lay forgotten in a Harvard University library
Sam Jones in Madrid
06, Jul, 2022 @7:00 AM
A classicist at Glastonbury: ‘Headbanging in raincoats? It’s as English as Gardeners’ Question Time’
Our chief culture writer is a Glyndebourne veteran, but has never been to the world’s biggest music festival – so what did she make of the spectacle, the songs and the hedonism?
Charlotte Higgins
26, Jun, 2022 @1:45 PM
Five of the best books about Russia and Ukraine
As Russia wages war, the historian Orlando Figes offers a guide to the literature that illuminates the tensions and the myths of the region
Orlando Figes
06, Mar, 2022 @11:00 AM
Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman review – myth in Georgian London
A young woman living above an antiquarian shop comes across an ancient vase in this vivid debut
Natasha Pulley
16, Feb, 2022 @11:00 AM
Forget Wordle! Can you crack the Dickens Code? An IT worker from California just did
The writer’s archaic shorthand has baffled experts for over a century. So they launched a deciphering competition for fans – with stunning results that cast new light on his love life and financial peril
Simon Usborne
07, Feb, 2022 @6:00 AM
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