Some gifts just keep on giving and normally you'd think cookbooks were in that category. But there are some that come in to the high-maintenance category
Read full article...Melanie McDonagh guides you through the best books of the year for older children...
The other day, I bought some squirrel, ready-skinned, at the local farmers' market. At £4, it was, I grant you, on the steep side
A century is a long time in politics - well, in anything, I suppose, this side of eternity
The man who created the French manicure, Jeff Pinks, has come up with a glitzier version of it for the Ritz Hotel
The outward sign of a good cookbook is that it's a mess: the pages stuck together with eggwhite and oily thumbprints on the recipes
The sheer number of immigrants who would head for Britain could cause huge problems for the capital
The Irish writer Sebastian Barry has form when it comes to plundering his own family history for the stuff of his novels. And this one is no exception
The Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair - the chambermaid versus the French financier - always looked like a clash of cultures, French versus American
Feature: Just when you thought the phone hacking saga couldn't get more dramatic, Wendi struck. Now Mrs Murdoch is everyone's heroine, says Melanie McDonagh
It didn't take long, did it, for Britain's most ferocious mother to turn into Britain's most embarrassing mother
You have to concede a sort of grudging respect for Sir VS Naipaul. His willingness to give offence is almost disarming; he makes Martin Amis look like an amateur
The past has a funny way of coming back to bite you. Wars and crises that once seemed all-important fade into the background and then, out of nowhere, they return centre-stage
The real interest of The Forgotten Waltz is that it is a curiously exact picture of Ireland in the heady, mindless days before the Irish crash
The happiness expert, Professor Lord Richard Layard, is, you might say, an advertisement for his subject
Nicely timed for Easter, we have The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, or James Frey's take on the Second Coming
The Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film festival may not be quite the Oscars - film buffs think it's classier - but there's a British film in the running for it tomorrow
The World Service is thought to be above criticism, but in many parts of the world it's just not needed
Mercifully, there is life beyond adolescent TV blood-sucking, says Melanie McDonagh
Nigella and Jamie are inevitable contributors but the real treat is from Elizabeth David, the doyenne of cookbooks, says Melanie McDonagh
We sent one lucky family off to experience inspirational Iceland. Read the full story here.
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