Author Peter Ackroyd: ‘You eat a great deal of knowledge. You sick it up. And then you start again’
The great biographer and novelist, now 74, shows no sign of slowing. Now he’s produced a history of the English soul, and declares himself ‘eager to go on’
March 2023
In brief: The English Actor; Cursed Bread; The Restless Republic – reviews
A woolly history of stage acting; a sensuous tale of deadly obsession in a French town; and a seminal exploration of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate
October 2019
Book clinic
Book clinic: can you recommend enjoyable historical fiction?
From Sarah Dunant’s eye for detail to Peter Ackroyd’s ear for period dialogue, fiction anchored in the past varies in character
June 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the River Thames
From bucolic source to marshy lower reaches, London’s mighty river has inspired great writing
March 2019
Top 10s
Top 10 books about building cities
From Mary Beard’s Roman history to Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction, Jonathan Carr chooses the best writing about citizens’ eternal challenges
September 2017
What's great about The Limehouse Golem? Glorious Victorian London grime
Mark Kermode's film of the week
The Limehouse Golem review – dirty deeds done dead well
August 2017
The Limehouse Golem review – lurid but literate Victorian serial-killer melodrama
Jane Goldman: 'The only way Hit-Girl could be not sexualised was by being 11'
July 2017
If you only read one book this summer … make it this one
If our 2017 holiday reading list was too long for you, here are some suggestions, from beach reads to history, science to sci-fi
June 2017
Critical eye
Book reviews roundup: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness; Between Them: Remembering my Parents; Queer City
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy; Between Them: Remembering my Parents by Richard Ford; Queer City by Peter Ackroyd
May 2017
Book of the day
Queer City by Peter Ackroyd review – a celebration of gay London
The capital’s great chronicler delineates in eye-popping detail the topography of queer desire across the city, from 14th-century brothels to chemsex
Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd – review
Ackroyd’s history of gay culture in the capital is entertaining but sexes up the facts
Peter Ackroyd: A secret history – 2,000 years of gay life in London
The prolific biographer, historian and novelist returns to familiar territory with a gay history of the city
September 2016
Chloe Dewe Mathews: ‘People see the river as an antidote to the city’
First look review
The Limehouse Golem review – an upturned Victorian murder mystery
March 2016
On my radar
On my radar: Daniel Mays’s cultural highlights
The actor on Harold Pinter, a great Marlon Brando documentary, a Peter Ackroyd murder mystery and Shane Meadows’s This Is England saga
April 2015
Critical eye
Book reviews roundup: Alfred Hitchcock, A Decent Ride and Words Without Music
What the critics thought of Peter Ackroyd’s Alfred Hitchcock, Irvine Welsh’s A Decent Ride and Philip Glass’s Words Without Music
May 2014
Charlie Chaplin by Peter Ackroyd review – divine comedy, difficult man
A haunting biography captures the brilliance and the blemishes of a comic who fought his way from poverty to worldwide fame, writes Simon Callow
April 2014
Charlie Chaplin review – a man condemned to journey alone
Peter Ackroyd's Chaplin belongs to London, but this damaged man had no real home, writes Peter Conrad
