Books
The AI apocalypse is the least of our worries
A host of other catastrophes are far more likely to destroy the planet, including solar storms, super volcanoes, nuclear winter, biowarfare and even asteroid strike
Campus antics: Seduction Theory, by Emily Adrian, reviewed
Two creative writing professors in a ‘deeply rewarding’ marriage separately decide to press the self-destruct button
The scourge of the sensitivity reader
A comparatively new figure with no accredited expertise now dictates to literary agents, senior editors and award-winning authors
The spiritual journey of St Augustine
Christians should consider themselves ‘peregrini’, said Augustine, and his life on the periphery of the Roman empire taught him that we are all citizens of nowhere
What the Quran has to say about slavery
While it attaches high moral value to emancipation, it acknowledges the legitimacy of slavery and the sexual exploitation of woman – justifying forced concubinage by certain Islamic regimes
Mossad’s secret allies in Operation Wrath of God
Aviva Guttmann reveals how the intelligence-sharing network the Club de Berne aided Israel in avenging the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre
Successful modern design follows no rules
The greatest designers have a unique way of seeing things – a vision that is essentially intuitive, says Google’s User Experience guru Maggie Gram
It was drug addiction that killed for Elvis, not his greedy manager
‘Colonel’ Tom Parker may have struck a hard bargain to fund his compulsive gambling habit, but his devotion to Presley was total, says Peter Guralnick
Progress is destroying the planet: the rants of a self-hating American
Poverty is increasing and freedom contracting, says Samuel Miller McDonald – and exploitative white Americans, from Abraham Lincoln onwards, are largely to blame
A precocious protagonist: Vera, or Faith, by Gary Shteyngart, reviewed
No wonder clever ten-year old Vera is suffering intense anxiety in Manhattan, what with problems at school, her birth mother vanishing and the wider American world in turmoil
A road trip like no other – crossing America by Greyhound bus
Joanna Pocock made the journey in 2006, then again 17 years later – and was shocked by the environmental changes she witnessed
The boundless enthusiasm of Asa Briggs
A prodigy from the start, the tireless historian left his fellow academics panting behind him in a long and distinguished career
The powder keg of 1980s New York
Ed Koch’s mayoralty is beset by violent crime, corruption, racism, Aids and a crack epidemic, with Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump further tormenting him where possible
‘I’ve taken to sleeping in my teeth’ – the wartime admissions of T.S. Eliot
‘I’m getting to be a wambling old codger’…‘I haven’t got enough phlegm to undress’, writes the poet, exhausted by readings and broadcasts, in letters spanning 1942-44
God on his side
It was veteran journalist Zito who said in her 2018 book The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American…
A century of western meddling in Iran
British involvement with the Pahlavis from the 1920s and postwar US policy were contributory factors to the revolution and the worsening of relations since
Madcap antics: The Pentecost Papers, by Ferdinand Mount, reviewed
Hapless Dickie Pentecost is drawn into a consortium involved in short-selling scams disguised as environmental activism in the Amazon
Looking on in anger: Happiness and Love, by Zoe Dubno, reviewed
A nameless woman, joining former friends after a funeral, is left speechless with fury at their vanity and pretensions
The trials of ‘the sexiest man alive’
Johnny Depp dismissed the idea a prenup before marrying Amber Heard – only to spend the next decade embroiled in litigation
An explosion of toxic masculinity: The Fathers, by John Niven, reviewed
The lives of two men who meet in a Glasgow maternity unit soon spiral out of control, exposing heartbreaking vulnerabilities, in this wry portrait of modern fatherhood
Romantic fantasies of the French in India
A cottage industry of counterfactual history emerged in 19th-century France catering for those mourning India’s ‘loss’ after successive defeats by the British
What’s next for Taiwan?
Invasion by China – long threatened – would result in a serious global depression. But how will the US react?
Britain’s new role as a bastion of black culture
Two books take us from race riots and Teddy Boys to the current ‘Jamaicanisation’ of our cities – and the inflection now hip among white British teenagers
The insoluble link between government and crime
Taxes and prohibition invariably lead to evasion, racketeering and corruption in an endless capitalist cycle, says Mark Galeotti
The merchant as global reporter
Joad Raymond Wren explores the role played by Europe’s polyglot traders in disseminating news before the invention of the telegraph
