It is a cliché of parenthood that it enables you to see the world with fresh eyes. However, I didn't bargain on seeing England so starkly through the eyes of my seven-month-old daughter... more
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... more
Nobel Prize-winning author VS Naipaul has raised hackles by dismissing women writers as 'unequal' to him and criticising their 'sentimentality'... more
As the illegitimate son of Pakistani politician Salman Taseer, Aatish Taseer was hardly close to his father. But since Salman's murder he has been unable to write a word... more
Commentary: The Delhi Commonwealth Games will probably go on - the Indians have too much pride at stake and the Commonwealth Games Federation can not stop them... more
The circumstances surrounding the partial release of Kafka papers from their Zurich bank vault resembles an exceptionally complicated Victorian novel... more
If London is a centre of influence, a melting pot of creative partnerships, deals, competition and unlikely alliances then last night the Evening Standard's party for London's top 1,000 influentials was a microcosm of that in action... more
From today more Londoners than ever before will be able to pick up the West End Final edition of the London Evening Standard with the very latest news... more
Eamonn McCabe invites us into private worlds in Writers' Rooms where the secrets of creativity, memories of agonies and inspirations are stored.
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J M G Le Clézio, who has just won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, has many connections to Britain. The son of a British doctor, he grew up speaking both French and English. As a child, he regularly holidayed in Britain and went on to study English at Bristol University.... more
Celebrity sells at an astonishing rate, yet at its heart the UK still loves a book for itself and London is a great champion of literature. These are the people who keep us reading.
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An account of a gruesome Victorian murder which sparked our obsession with detective novels has won the world's most lucrative non-fiction book prize... more
Go on, admit it. Even if like me you have little interest in the shenanigans of the royal family, you cannot fail to have had your curiosity piqued by the revelations about the Earl of Snowdon's love life... more
I recently met Sathnam Sanghera, a Cambridge graduate and Times journalist. He'd written of his determination to marry a white woman and I asked why. He sheepishly admitted that a white partner was proof he'd "made it"... more
So now we know. The new authorised biography of VS Naipaul reveals the Nobel laureate is a monster of meanness and paranoia who enjoyed whoremongering, beating up his mistress and verbally abusing his wife... more
Patrick French has just published an unflinchingly honest biography of Nobel prize-winning writer VS Naipaul, who comes across as unpleasant and stuffed with conceit... more
Sound check: German industrial metal band Rammstein literally play with fire in their live performances - and now they are about to unleash their singeing spectacle on London. Watch out for your eyebrows
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