On Princess Diana of Wales.

On women, monarchy, and breeding.

“When constant revisionism and re-invention is under way, what does it profit a biographer to drag the weary ‘facts’ before us?”

On spectacular saintliness, holy anorexia, and female hysteria.

The winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize explores the disastrous, unexpected consequences of an unfaithful moment. Via John French.

"He knew Jody was rattling about the house. He knew—and he acknowledged this later—that she might at any moment blunder in. She did not like parties that involved open doors, and guests passing between the house and the garden. Strangers might come in, and wasps."

On hypochondria.

On living in Saudi Arabia.