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