The attempt by Gunter Grass, who has died at the age of 87, to hide his past as a member of the Waffen SS was a shameful betrayal of his countrymen, and invalidates his life's work
'With a $15 trillion national debt continuing to grow, it's understandable if Obama prefers to shift the focus onto those social and personal areas where he regularly beats Romney'
Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies is a dazzling exercise in literary ventriloquism, but it panders too much to modern sensibilities, painting Thomas Cromwell as a secular saint
'While between 1895 and 1945 the German debate over how to be modern resulted in a global killing-field, a group of artists in Worpswede set down their visions for a 20th century of artistic sensibility and material living'
Christy Campbell's focused, meticulous account of the V-weapon campaign of 1944 provides a neat counterpoint to the magisterial grand narrative of Antony Beevor's The Second World War
