More from Books
Will colonialism’s psychological legacy ever cease to be a source of pain?
The British Empire’s abiding bequest has not been infrastructure and administrative systems but a memory of repression that continues to pass down through generations, says Simukai Chiguda
A sinister strangeness: City Like Water, by Dorothy Tse, reviewed
A beloved native city is in a state of flux, slipping from normal into nightmare as freedom vanishes, time collapses and people throw themselves from rooftops
Is it better to be reasonable or rational?
As well as being flexible and open-minded, reasonable people are concerned about what’s of true value – whereas the rational may simply be interested in their own tangible gains
The history of Moscow was one of extreme violence from the start
The Mongol massacres of 1238 were followed by reigns of terror, plague, fire, revolution and purges – as well as constant hostility to Kyiv
Thoughtful fantasy: Travel Light, by Naomi Mitchison, reviewed
Borrowing from Arthuriana, Norse sagas, fairy tales and legends, Mitchison’s novel modulates midway between magic and realism
W.H. Auden’s virtuosity masked careful craftsmanship
Poetry came so easily to Auden that at times he had consciously to ‘keep the diction and rhythm within a hairsbreadth of prose without becoming it’
Fractured loyalties: The Tribe, by Michael Arditti, reviewed
A powerful Jewish family flee Salonika in 1912 – only to fall apart in France on the eve of the second world war
Blockchain fantasies: My Bags Are Big, by Tibor Fischer, reviewed
Everyone in Dubai’s confected utopia is reinventing themselves and failing miserably in this dark satire on greed, stupidity and regret
Nintendo and the plumber who conquered the world
Keza MacDonald describes how Mario, the company’s mascot, became not only an icon of Japanese culture but a global hero
Lloyd Blankfein – guiding light of Goldman Sachs
While considered a safe pair of hands during the financial crisis of 2007, Blankfein skirts around some of Goldman’s more controversial decisions at the time
The world destroyed by madness: Howl, by Howard Jacobson, reviewed
Apart from the atrocity of 7 October 2023 itself, it is the reaction of neighbours and even family that appals Jacobson’s protagonist in a novel that still manages to be darkly comic
Frederic Prokosch – the man who seemed to know everyone
A beguiling memoir boasts intimate encounters with many of the 20th century’s most celebrated writers – but should we believe a word of it?
Caught between Hitler and Bomber Command – the Berliners’ cruel predicament
Ordinary citizens faced two enemies in the war, and it as hard to know who was more dangerous – the Allies or their own deranged leaders
Chasing happiness: The Daffodil Days, by Helen Bain, reviewed
Leaving London with her husband and daughter to make a new home on the edge of Dartmoor, Sylvia Plath longs for ‘everything to be perfect… and hasn’t learned yet that, in life, nothing can be’
When did you last see your siblings?
By the age of 18 we will have spent far more time with our brothers and sisters than we will ever spend again – suggesting that blood ties do not guarantee intimacy
The glory and tragedy of Trafalgar
Nelson’s great naval victory may finally have delivered Britain from the threat of French invasion, but his death left the nation in deep mourning
The sorrows of the young Melvyn Bragg
His first impression of Oxford University in 1958 was of ‘effortless wealth and privilege everywhere’ and, feeling like a foreigner, he pined for the familiarity of close-knit Wigton
Seeing the trees for the wood
Coppicing and pollarding are essential if trees are to produce wood in perpetuity for any useful purpose, making woodland heavily dependent on human management
How Ulysses horrified the stuffed shirts of New York’s literary establishment
The magazine editor Margaret C. Anderson’s spirited attempts to introduce Joyce’s masterpiece to 1920s America resulted in a court case and heavy fine for disseminating obscenity
Ghastly middle-class materialism: The Quantity Theory of Morality, by Will Self, reviewed
Self’s latest satire suggests that a world where the avaricious prosper, and the meek inherit the debts of the unscrupulous, contains a limited amount of morality
A nasty little tale about a marriage: Look What You Made Me Do, by John Lanchester, reviewed
The life of recently widowed Kate is cast into further turmoil by a hit TV series which suggests that her husband had been having an affair with its scriptwriter
‘Evil visited that day and we don’t know why’ – Dunblane 30 years on
Stephen McGinty describes the stunned bewilderment of parents and teachers at the atrocity – and the powerful resistance to the campaign to ban handguns in the aftermath
Nights at the Lutetia – the dark history of a luxury hotel
When the great Left Bank establishment was requisitioned by the Abwehr in 1940, the staff continued to serve the new guests with their habitual courtesy – and even welcomed them back postwar
The woke wars intensify
Nigel Biggar argues eloquently for countering ‘cancel culture’ with classical liberalism – but a far more fanatical anti-woke ideology is gathering pace
Learning from history requires sophistication and skill
While the past can never provide ‘how to’ guides for the future, Odd Arne Westad makes some interesting comparisons between the balance of power pre-1914 and the present
