4 h. ago A Mind of My Own by Kathy Burke review – a brilliant, blunt and beautiful memoir

The actor on being called ugly, telling Johnny Rotten to F-off, and striking gold at CannesKathy Burke’s mother, Bridget, died of stomach cancer when she was 18 months old; she writes that it made her “feel dead famous” in her community. She was raised by her older brothers, John and Barry, who were 10 and eight when it happened, and sometimes by their father Pat, an alcoholic for many years, violent with it, who struggled to care for his family. Pat and Bridget had moved to London from Ireland, and the Burkes lived on an estate in Islington, where the other families played a vital role in raising and feeding the children. On his deathbed, in 1994, Pat asked Kathy to do two things: to give up smoking, and to write more. It has only taken her 30 years, she says, but she’s finally done the latter.The entertainment industry is top-heavy with people from middle-and upper-class backgrounds who have a limited understanding of lives that don’t resemble th...

Science

3 d. ago Volvo ES90 review: Brilliant new EV that’s perfect for SUV haters

New saloon gets the latest fast-charging tech and a decent dose of style, plus a brilliant Bowers & Wilkins audio system

Politics

6 d. ago Die My Love LFF review: Jennifer Lawrence goes bonkers brilliant in Lynne Ramsay’s wild return

Opposite husband Robert Pattinson, Lawrence is superb (and, yes, fun) as a new mother in mental meltdown

Events

7 d. ago After the Hunt review – Julia Roberts is brilliant, but this post

Andrew Garfield is menacing and Ayo Edebiri is miscast in this Yale University button-pusher that marks a slight setback for the typically wonderful Luca Guadagnino

Politics

1 week ago ‘I wanted to write more than I wanted to have children’: author Sarah Perry on rejecting motherhood

When the novelist was faced with the decision of whether to pursue fertility treatment or focus on her career, her literary ambitions kicked inFifteen years ago, having said all my life that I never wanted a baby, that I couldn’t fathom why any free woman would do such a thing to her body and her mind, I suddenly and passionately wanted a child. I remember where I was when this feeling, so heretical to me, arrived: it was early morning in London, and having come down Fleet Street on my way to work, I was standing at the till of a newsagents to pay for a Diet Coke, a flapjack and a pack of Silk Cut. There were no children there and no pregnant women; nothing had been said or done to change my mind. It had simply landed on me, and more or less immediately – because I’ve never known how to control an impulse, and because I was 30, which seemed to me then a great age – my husband, Robert, and I set about trying to have a child.When for s...

Culture

3 w. ago Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry review – a brilliant meditation on mortality

The Essex Serpent author offers a moving account of her father-in-law’s final illness that will resonate widelyThe novelist Sarah Perry’s father-in-law, David, died of oesophageal cancer in 2022. This book tells the story of his dying, from the last time she saw him well, on a trip to Great Yarmouth at the end of summer, to his death less than two months later, just nine days after being diagnosed.It’s not easy to account for what makes this book so special. Its main character is as unpromisingly ordinary as its title suggests, and some may even find him a little boring. David Perry is the kind of man who spends hours sorting his beloved stamp collection into albums with the aid of long-tipped forceps and magnifying glasses, or filling in his Sudoku puzzle books, or reading the latest copy of the Antiques Gazette, looking intently at porcelain dogs and chased silver punch-bowls. Continue reading...

Events