This article is not currently available online. Buy reprint of this article.
Ruth Scurr is the author of Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. She is a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Che pasticcio!Tim Parks: Carlo Emilio Gadda
Behind the Gas LampJulian Barnes: Félix Fénéon
Emotional SushiIan Sansom: Tony, Nick and Simon
MotheringTerry Eagleton on The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín
BratpackersRichard Lloyd Parry on Alex Garland