Notebooks

Notebooks are snapshots from our writers, reflecting on current affairs and underappreciated aspects of culture and history.

'Two Boys and a Girl making Music', 1629.

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In praise of music’s uselessness

Let's do away with moralising about music and take pure pleasure in the work of composers of the past.

Mahan Esfahani April 6, 2021

American actress Bette Davis, whose waist was reportedly insured for $28,000. Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures / Sunset Boulevard / Corbis via Getty Images.

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More than the sum of our parts

Our enduring fascination with celebrity body parts reminds us of the frailty of being human.

Fergus Butler-Gallie March 31, 2021

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Ernest Benn against the Census and the forces of Bumbledom

As Britons fulfil their Census obligations this week, they'll do well to take a note from Sir Ernest Benn's libertarian resistance to bureaucracy.

Alastair Benn March 26, 2021

Rodin's bronze sculpture The Thinker at the Rodin Museum in Paris.

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Rodin’s eternal peace

The brief re-opening of the Rodin Museum’s gardens gave Parisians a bewitching respite from their everyday cares.

Agnès Poirier March 25, 2021

A cyanotype photogram made by Anna Atkins, part of her 1843 book, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. Credit: Public Domain

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The original women in STEM

Women played a vital role in the early history of botany - let's not reduce their contribution to kitsch romance.

Francesca Peacock March 17, 2021

Illustrated edition of In Search of Lost Time, 1913-1927,

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In search of Proustian little moments that make life worthwhile

As Proust noted, our incremental memories of the world are the foundation of our lives – but where have they gone?

Alastair Benn March 12, 2021

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The lost art of listening

It is a commonplace saying that we must listen more. But in our noisy world it takes a lot of skill and energy.

Tobias Jones March 12, 2021

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Life in Venice

Online exhibitions have nothing on the living art of Venice. Seeing its Renaissance beauty again is pure joy.

Agnès Poirier March 5, 2021

Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night, Saint Rémy, June 1889.

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Tender is the night

Across our cities and towns, night’s natural darkness is giving way to the glare and dazzle of LED lighting – but to embrace it wholeheartedly is to risk losing more than ominous s..

Clive Aslet March 2, 2021