Financial Times

Ian Thomson’s first article for the Financial Times appeared in 1986. Here is a selection:

 

October 31, 2014

On the shores of Lake Peipsi: where time stands still

Details The nearest city is Tartu, where the tourist office (visittartu.com) has details of hotels and guides. Ian Thomson stayed at the Nina Kordon guesthouse; his guide, Irina Orekhova, can be..

 

June 20, 2014

Waiting for Monsieur Hulot

Jacques Tati, one of French cinema’s great maverick innovators, features this month in a British Film Institute

 

October 17, 2014

‘Everything is Wonderful: Memories of a Collective Farm in Estonia’, by Sigrid Rausing

…is Wonderful she evokes the spirit of a lost Baltic community and, in so doing, has written a rather beautiful book.  Review by Ian Thomson

 

January 18, 2013

Nonsense and sensibility

…down (as Ashbery sees it) of modern life. “Why is dumbness to be prized?” he asks; it’s a good question.  Review by Ian Thomson

 

January 11, 2013

Sex, drugs and demagoguery

…desire to shock. Otherwise, this is a serviceable biography of a man who was more of a poseur, really, than a writer. Review by Ian Thomson

 

December 29, 2012

Roman descent

…our hearts,” wrote a 14-year-old schoolgirl in 2006. Mussolini speaks to his admirers from beyond the grave. Review by Ian Thomson

 

December 14, 2012

Beauty that must die

…things to say about Keats, his extraordinary work and inner life. A finer biography is unlikely to emerge this year. Review by Ian Thomson

 

August 24, 2012

Literature laid bare

…all his papers. Fortunately for us, she did not comply. This fine new translation will help to win him new admirers. Review by Ian Thomson

 

June 8, 2012

What remains

by Euan Cameron, provides a vivid amalgam of opinion, history and travelogue; I was absorbed from start to finish. Review by Ian Thomson

 

May 23, 2012

A life scientific

BBC Bookmark documentary on Levi by the poet and critic Ian Hamilton. In it, Levi is seen walking through the sunlight…s books remain, however, and these are a marvel. Review by Ian Thomson

 

March 30, 2012

The old buccaneers

Literary pastiche of this sort often reads like the reverse of a tapestry – a frayed, ragged version of the original. Review by Ian Thomson

 

March 16, 2012

Unbearable lewdness

weight machine, the dangers and delights inherent in adultery are communicated with schoolboy prurience and vigour. Review by Ian Thomson

 

March 2, 2012

Slow justice

illustrate wider social problems in Italy, such as a deepening political unease and a mafia-style culture of entitlement. Review by Ian Thomson

 

April 21, 2012

Atomic theory was born centuries before Lucretius

From Mr Richard Beville. Sir, For Ian Thomson (“A life scientific”, Life & Arts, April 7) to say that…truly  indivisible (“atoma”). Also contentious is Mr Thomson’s claim that Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose is Italy…

 

June 6, 2014

‘Animals’, by Emma Jane Unsworth

Animals, by Emma Jane Unsworth, Canongate, RRP£12.99, 256 pages Emma Jane Unsworth’s comically bibulous second novel,Review by Ian Thomson

 

February 7, 2014

‘William S. Burroughs’, by Barry Miles

…occasional repetitiveness, provides a riveting documentary of a most peculiar life lived in the American underbelly. Review by Ian Thomson

Report from the Interior, by Paul Auster

…are a delight; the punctilious descriptions of mid-century suburban America are both funny and oddly affecting.  Review by Ian Thomson

 

November 8, 2013

The Pike, by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War, by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Fourth Estate, RRP£12.99, 704 Review by Ian Thomson

 

November 1, 2013

Three Brothers, by Peter Ackroyd

Three Brothers, by Peter Ackroyd, Chatto & Windus, RRP£14.99, 346 pages Born in London in 1949, Peter Ackroyd is a Review by Ian Thomson