Books
Farewell to Lyra: The Rose Field, by Philip Pullman, reviewed
In the final volume of The Book of Dust, Pan’s quest for Lyra’s lost imagination takes him east into another universe, while Lyra heads the same way looking for her daemon
The dangerous charm of Peter Matthiessen
The philandering author of the sublime The Snow Leopard spent a lifetime globe-hopping from the Amazonian jungle to the Siberian tundra at great cost to family life
Trouble in Tbilisi: The Lack of Light, by Nino Haratischwili, reviewed
Romance and family feuding Romeo and Juliet-style but on opioids unfold in 1990s Georgia, as civil war rages amid the power cuts
The disturbing allure of sex robots
Kathleen Richardson reveals how certain men now seem to prefer the idea of ‘socially interactive companions’, first pioneered at MIT, to human girlfriends
Few people are as dangerous as an insecure man mocked
A mass murderer will often show signs of despair and fury at being sidelined or laughed at before running amok, warns the forensic psychiatrist Paul E. Mullen
Everything and the girl: a lit-crit dissection of the Swifty world
The brilliant but unknowable songwriter is short-changed by this curious hybrid of slangy fangirl excitement and veneer of scholarship
Funny, absorbing and as noir as noir can be: Thomas Pynchon rides again
The elusive novelist’s latest starts off complicated and then rapidly gets more so with its knot of gangsters, thugs, wacky inventors, spies, cops, political operatives and their accomplices
When, why and how came the fall – the success and sorry decline of the British Army
An impressively detailed chronicle by an analyst well up to the task. Read it and weep
When two worlds collide: Well, This is Awkward, by Esther Walker reviewed
A high-powered childless fortysomething social media exec’s life is turned upside down by the arrival of her 11-year-old niece
Revelling in illusion: the French sociologist-cum-philosopher who hit peak absurdity back in 1991
An admirably brief critical biography of Jean Baudrillard, whose prose was to thought what mud is to a windscreen
All that was bravest and best: William Miller, forgotten Victorian hero of South American independence
A meticulous account masquerading as adventure story of the life of the baker’s son from Kent who became a brilliant military tactician and soldier pivotal in the struggle against slavery and imperialism
On the road, high society style
In 1949, aged 26, Judy Montagu, cousin of Mary Churchill and daughter of Venetia Stanley, criss-crossed the US in a Greyhound bus. The resulting diary is edited and annotated by her daughter, whose mother died when she was only nine
The end is nigh – or is it?
Two AI aficionados sound the alarm in this blend of third-rate sci-fi, low-grade tech analysis and bad geopolitical assessment
Mad, bad and brilliant: Jesus Christ Kinski by Benjamin Myers, reviewed
The celebrated postwar film actor Klaus Kinski returned to the stage in 1971 to perform a monologue, footage of which has long fascinated the author of this experimental and distinguished novel
Dressing the word salad
We owe the ghostwriter of this book a debt of gratitude. A novelist called Geraldine Brooks is cited as a…
Justin Currie’s truly remarkable rock memoir
Aged 58, and suffering from Parkinson’s, Del Amitri’s chief songwriter never loses his sense of humour as he treks across America, playing in cowsheds, state fairs and parking lots
Will Israel always have America’s backing?
The views of today’s young Americans should concern Israelis, says Marc Lynch. With no memory of Israel’s foundations in 1948, they are considerably more pro-Palestinian than their parents
The radical power of sentimentality
Ferdinand Mount identifies three distinct sentimental revolutions – in the 11th, 18th and 20th centuries – that transformed legal frameworks and social structures as well as hearts and minds
The gay rights movement threatens to implode
Tolerance pushed too far by LGBTQ+ demands may soon turn to intolerance, and legislation can be rolled back in the blink of an eye, warns Ronan McCrea
A literary Russian doll: The Tower, by Thea Lenarduzzi, reviewed
The closer we get to the mystery of Annie, a 19th-century consumptive locked up in a tower by her wealthy father, the more we are lost in other stories within stories
The traitor who gives Downing Street a bad name
Even by 17th-century standards, George Downing’s duplicity in serving both Oliver Cromell and Charles II was exceptional and set new standards for unscrupulousness
A death sentence for Afghanistan’s women judges
Threatened with beheading by the Taliban in 2021, some judges managed to flee the country. But many remain in hiding, having destroyed all evidence of their qualifications
Robin Holloway lambasts some of our most beloved composers
Works by Strauss, Holst, Rossini, Schoenberg and Wagner are all targeted, while Hildegard of Bingen’s music is pronounced a ‘psychedelic bore’
Death and glory: the politics of the World Cup
The choice of ‘tiny boiling Qatar’ as a venue in 2022 – where thousands of construction workers lost their lives – typifies Fifa’s cynical favour-auctioning, says Simon Kuper
The vanished glamour of New York nightlife
Booze, coke, models, parties… Mark Ronson’s vivid account of DJing in the 1990s is a celebration of a lost world
