Sam Leith

2 days ago | spectator.co.uk | Sam Leith

It’s always heartwarming to hear of a person who starts from humble origins and, through sheer entrepreneurial vim, makes something spectacular of himself, isn’t it? Such as story appears to be that of Graham King, founder and boss of Clearspring Ready Homes. It was reported yesterday that Mr King has this year crossed that all-important threshold from multi-, multi- millionaire to billionaire from his company’s contracts with the government to house asylum-seekers.

2 days ago | spearswms.com | Sam Leith

The first time I visited Jaipur, I was a scruffy and clueless 18-year-old backpacker plodding from flea-bitten youth hostel to flea-bitten youth hostel and subsisting on dal and chapatis. What a difference three decades or so make. I have just returned from promoting my new book at the Jaipur Literature Festival, where, though I remain as scruffy and clueless as I was back then, my welcome in India was rather grander. Jaipur is the biggest literature festival in the world, and it feels like it.

1 week ago | spectator.com.au | Sam Leith

The other day, I had a dismaying experience while making my usual frugal lunch. Usually, a cheese sandwich does me. Two slices bread, salted butter, thick bits of the maturest cheddar Ocado has to offer, and a grind of salt and pepper: a lunch fit for a king. But even kings like to change things up a bit from time to time.

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Sam Leith

The other day, I had a dismaying experience while making my usual frugal lunch. Usually, a cheese sandwich does me. Two slices bread, salted butter, thick bits of the maturest cheddar Ocado has to offer, and a grind of salt and pepper: a lunch fit for a king. But even kings like to change things up a bit from time to time. Custom has an established track record of staling things.

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Sam Leith

Florence Knapp’s first novel The Names, publishing this month, tells not one story but three. As it opens, a mother is preparing to take her newborn boy to formally register his name. Will it be Bear, as his older sister would like, her own choice of Julian, or Gordon, named after his controlling father? The universe pivots on the decision she makes. Knapp plaits together the three stories that follow to trace the three different worlds in which the boy grows to manhood.