The book I am currently readingCarter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold – the story of how a piece of stage magic might have led to the death of President Harding. It’s spectacular. The books that changed my lifeUrsula K Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. And The Gospel
Category: Books
This Dark Country by Rebecca Birrell review – Bloomsbury’s female artists
According to Rebecca Birrell, there was nothing remotely still about the still lifes that British female painters produced in the first third of the 20th century. While Vanessa Bell’s apples, Gluck’s flowers and Nina Hamnett’s saucepan might appear to speak of modest ambitions and domestic self-containment, Birrell argues that these
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker review – bleak and impressive
Troy has fallen. Its warriors, even its unborn male babies, are all dead. The mutilated body of the sacked city’s king, Priam, has been left lying in the dunes by the Greek camp, stinking and covered all over – as Pat Barker’s narrator horribly notes – with “flies, thousands of
From Aristotle to Ariana Grande: the expanding meaning of ‘metaverse’
Ariana Grande’s virtual concerts, held recently within the video game Fortnite, have had excitable tech enthusiasts talking anew about the imminence of the “metaverse”. The ancient Greek meta means “with” or “after”. The title of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, given by an editor after his death, means simply “the books that come
Blank Pages by Bernard MacLaverty – stories from the far end of life
Bernard MacLaverty has never rushed into print: his first novel, Lamb (1980) – a sharp tragedy with an indelible ending – was published when he was 38, with four further novels across four decades. Collections of stories have been a little more frequent – this is his sixth – but
The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan review – the politics of sexual attraction
In The Right to Sex Amia Srinivasan, a professor of social and political theory at Oxford University, tells the story of a black friend who, “despite being beautiful and otherwise popular”, was “off the table” when it came to dating in her mostly white private school. The reason, Srinivasan tells
Red Knight by Michael Ashcroft – an unauthorised biography of Keir Starmer
In an unusual departure from the norms of the genre, Michael Ashcroft begins his unauthorised biography of Keir Starmer, Red Knight, with a lengthy peroration about himself. Ashcroft informed Starmer of his project, but received no reply; it emerged over time that not only did the Labour leader not wish
Ted Cruz’s campaign may have spent $150,000 on copies of his book
Ted Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported. Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court
Werner Herzog to tell story of Japanese soldier who refused to surrender
Werner Herzog is writing a book about Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who took three decades to surrender after the end of the second world war. The esteemed German film director’s take on the life of Onoda, The Twilight World, will be translated by the poet Michael Hofmann, and published
Top 10 books about family life | Stephen Walsh
Uncomplicated, happy families are not to be found in most books – no more than in most homes. Family life is messy. Try getting several people into a car, or through an airport, and you’ll know how quickly family drama can escalate. And these are supposedly the easy bits. What