Books
Jaded and adrift: I Want You to Be Happy, by Jem Calder, reviewed
Two lonely residents of east London, well-matched in their attachment to idle dreams, make an awkward stab at a relationship
The world’s most beautiful man in a den of iniquity
The actor Alain Delon emerges as an habitué of France’s brutal underworld in a comprehensive investigation of the 1968 Markovic Affair
Mapping the Emerald Isle: Land, by Maggie O’Farrell, reviewed
‘Maps are acts of colonisation, enemy tools,’ says Tomás, a reluctant cartographer in 19th-century Ireland, where cruel English landowners lord it over soulful, downtrodden locals
Signs of impending doom: The Given World, by Melissa Harrison, reviewed
When the cuckoo is no longer heard and even the last badger shuffles off, the inhabitants of Lower Eodham, a village mentioned in Domesday, sense that change can no longer be resisted
The importance of fairy tales in testing times
The fairy tale stems from our hopeful desires, says the folklorist Jack Zipes – who sees the Land of Oz as a utopian antidote to emerging American capitalism
The Panic of 1873 seems eerily familiar
Rapid technological change, real estate bubbles and a heavy reliance on debt helped precipitate the first Great Depression, with striking parallels to the situation today
Will robots simply bore us to extinction?
In an attempt to relieve the drudgery of warehouse work, technology has now eliminated all need for human decision-making, Sarah O’Connor discovers
The humiliating truth about the way we think
We overrate our capacity for rational deliberation, says Turi Munthe, when weather, soil, climate and geography are what really determine of our opinions and beliefs
Putin and Erdogan are playing with fire in the Balkans and the Caucasus
As Russia and Turkey jostle for influence in Europe’s overlooked corners, regional tensions begin to resemble those in the build-up to the Great War
Wham! How George Michael shot to stardom straight from school
The singer himself described his career as ‘unreal’, and admitted that one reason for cruising was the rare chance it gave him to meet ‘ordinary people’
The Battle of Cross Street: High and Low, by Amanda Craig, reviewed
A group of writers in north London find themselves under siege in the local café as race riots erupt in a divided neighbourhood
The wonder of Nature’s ability to heal itself
Even with minor initiatives such a reforestation and accessing lost water resources we can help Nature rebalance and avoid environmental catastrophe, says Thomas Crowther
Insufferable martinet or inspirational hero? Field Marshal Montgomery was both
An abusive childhood may help explain the contradictory character of Britain’s great second world war commander, says Gary Mead
Portrait of an addict: Keshed, by Stu Hennigan, reviewed
Hennigan’s doomed protagonist Sean surveys the wreckage of his past life as he drinks himself into oblivion
Reading between the lines: the power of the unsaid
Kate McLoughlin explores the various silences in English literature – of rapture, intimacy, failure, avoidance and inarticulable grief
Caroline Aherne’s comedic genius is much missed
No one today can unmask pomposity and self-obsession as devastatingly as Aherne did in the guise of the faux-naive Mrs Merton
How the 18th-century Panopticon inspired today’s giant distribution hubs
The Bentham brothers’ invention is strikingly reflected in the ‘precisely engineered system of surveillance and optimisation’ at Amazon’s ‘exploitative’ fulfilment centres, says Henry Snow
Witty, lyrical and abstract: the art of Kurt Schwitters
The German Dadaist developed his own brand of anti-rational art, transforming the junk of everyday life into vivid collages
A family affair: Love Lane, by Patrick Gale, reviewed
Banished to the Canadian Prairies, Harry Cane lives on the land alone, except for secret nightly visits from his long-term lover and brother-in-law, Paul
The vexed relationship of Winston Churchill and George V
The King found his minister ‘very socialistic’, and was especially outraged when Churchill, on moving to the Admiralty in 1911, suggested calling a ship HMS Oliver Cromwell
Why should it be shameful to study the Classics?
Mary Beard offers an intelligent defence of the time-honoured subject amid calls to denounce it as a tool of racism, fascism or imperialism
The indomitable spirit of the Wigmore Hall
Over more than a century the concert venue has hosted royalty and refugees, broken taboos, reinforced traditions and kept its doors open through two world wars and a global pandemic
The short, eventful life of George Forster – explorer, naturalist and revolutionary
By the time he died, aged 39, the German-Polish polymath had travelled the world, mastered ten languages, witnessed the French Revolution and campaigned tirelessly for human rights
Another heroic freethinker is wiped from Russian history
Vera Gedroits, the world’s first woman professor of surgery, inevitably fell foul of Stalin, despite supporting workers’ rights and saving hundreds of lives in the Russo-Japanese war
Macbeth in Swahili? There might even be improvements
In his invigorating book on Shakespeare in translation, Daniel Hahn explains how in certain languages entire Shakespearean phrases can be rolled into a single word
