The Three Musketeers: Milady review – more plotting, fighting and galloping derring-do
Our heroes are out to foil a complex plot involving smirking hitwoman Milady de Winter, tearing through gonzo fight scenes and excellent stunts at a teeth-rattling pace
June 2023
Top 10s
Top 10 adventure stories
The genre is often presumed to be one ‘for boys’. Novelists including Virginia Woolf and Georgette Heyer prove that women are just as capable of bold escapes and derring-do as men
April 2023
The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan review – one for all fans of roistering and horse-jumping
After a bromantic meet-cute with three grizzled veteran musketeers, the young fighter and his new gang journey entertainingly through palace intrigue with some excellent stunts
March 2023
The Three Musketeers review – stripped-back stab at classic tries for fresh approach
Low-budget take on the evergreen tale already feels overshadowed by the grand French retelling due next door
June 2022
Top 10s
Top 10 stories of male friendship
Writers from Alexandre Dumas to Jack Kerouac and Colson Whitehead have written fiction worth bonding with about these sometimes uneasy alliances
June 2021
Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds review – delightfully retro canine capers
Alexandre Dumas’ bitingly good novel enjoys yet another walk around the block in this marvellously muttish animation
April 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about revenge
From Alexandre Dumas to Ian McEwan, writers serve up a dish that’s best prepared only in imagination
September 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 escapes in books
Breaking free from confinement has been a driving theme for authors as diverse as Jane Austen, Henri Charrière and Geoffrey Household
May 2019
The Three Musketeers review – sweetly slapdash swashbuckling
It’s all for one and one for all in an enthusiastic if haphazard riot of dad jokes, dodgy accents and gleeful gallivanting
July 2018
The Three Musketeers review - a joyful twist on the classic swashbuckler
Themes of kindness and inclusivity are threaded cleverly through a lavish, thrilling adaptation
April 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 books about miscarriages of justice
From the Central Park Five to little Briony’s destructive decision in Atonement, here are some of the most affecting real and fictional tales of injustice
December 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 escapes in literature
From Alexandre Dumas to Stephen King and John le Carré, these stories of nerve and endurance are perennially compelling
September 2016
The Pajama Men review – surreal swashbucklers do Dumas
Pickling The Three Musketeers in their loopy imaginations, the storytelling double-act delight with a series of ad-libbed sketches
June 2016
Top 10s
Top 10 books about middle age
Finding work that confronts this difficult stage of life with honesty and wisdom is not easy – but these writers show it can be done
January 2016
Children's books
The Story of a Nutcracker by Alexandre Dumas - review
smileyblondeee: ‘I’ve always been aware of the story as a ballet and I know there’s a film adaptation but had never seen the book. This is one I’ll definitely be reading every Christmas’
December 2015
The story of The Nutcracker – in pictures
From the folk tales of ETA Hoffman and Alexandre Dumas to Tchaikovsky’s ballet and beyond, translater Sarah Ardizzone traces the evolution of one of our best-loved Christmas stories
March 2015
Alexandre Dumas' Chateau de Monte-Cristo counting on fund-raising appeal
The former home of Alexandre Dumas, the much-loved author, needs nearly €1m to stop it falling down
October 2014
Top 10s
The top 10 civil war novels
From Roman legions to medieval mayhem, Cavaliers and Roundheads to the crushing of ideals in the 20th century, there is fertile ground for drama in civil war, writes Robert Wilton
August 2014
A book for the beach
A book for the beach: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Imogen Russell Williams: With high adventure, derring-do and thrills to keep the drowsiest sunbather awake, this is perfect holiday reading
May 2014
Books blog
Readers' panel: experiences of books in prison
From Othello to Oscar Wilde - four readers explain why books mean so much to people in jail, and name the books that helped them to survive it
