The clue to Shakespeare’s sexuality lies in the sonnets
They are quite unlike any other sonnet sequence of the time and seem to be a kind of personal statement – written by a man with undeniable feelings for another man
Echoes of Tom Brown’s School Days: Rabbits, by Hugo Rifkind, reviewed
When 16-year-old Tommo moves to an elite, brutish boarding school, he longs to fit in and even manages to join the inner circle. But can he ever really become ‘one of them’?
The important business of idle loafing
Alain Corbin describes how rest, once seen as a prelude to eternal life, began to assume a therapeutic quality in the 19th century, as a guard against burnout and a cure for TB
Nothing rivals a traditional Chinese banquet for opulence
Imperial feasts in the 18th century would last several days – and it was considered the height of bad manners not to gorge on the variety of meat and fish on offer
Imprisoned for years on Putin’s whim
Vladimir Pereverzin’s ‘crime’ was to have worked for a company owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky – and refusing to give false evidence resulted in an 11-year sentence in the camps
The Karakachan sheepdog is a match for any bear – but not for modern society
The fearless breed, descended from the Molossus of Epirus described by Aristotle, may soon disappear from Central Europe, along with the flocks it guards
The assassination of Georgi Markov bore all the hallmarks of a Russian wet job
The Bulgarian dissident sailed too close to the wind with his revelations about Tudor Zhivkov in 1978, provoking the dictator to enlist Russian help in eliminating him
A tale of impossible love: The End of Drum Time, by Hanna Pylväinen, reviewed
A 19th-century missionary’s daughter falls for a Sami herdsman and flees with him to the tundra – only to find that, as an incomer, she will always be cold-shouldered
Portrait of an artistic provocateur: Blue Ruin, by Hari Kunzru, reviewed
A once fashionable YBA now scraping a living in America meets old friends by chance, prompting a deep dive into memory
Islands of inspiration: a poet’s life on Shetland
Jen Hadfield is not only spellbound by the moods of the ocean and the hectic weather but by the Shaetlan dialect itself – which ‘struck me immediately as a poetic language’
Streeting declares: ‘the NHS is broken’
Wes Streeting has just given a striking statement on arrival at the Department of Health and Social Care in which…
How Keir Starmer can make it up to Rosie Duffield
Congratulations to Rosie Duffield, who has won re-election for a third time as Labour MP for Canterbury. For many women…
Keir Starmer channeled Obama in his first Downing Street speech
In his first speech from the Downing Street lectern, Sir Keir Starmer was setting out to reaffirm those qualities that…
Meet Labour’s elite Scottish MPs
Scottish Labour has won 37 of the 57 seats north of the border, an increase of 36 on the 2019…
The election has left Irish unionism in crisis
The voters of Northern Ireland are used to being an impenetrable afterthought to most mainstream commentators in Britain. The general…
What Keir Starmer’s first Downing Street speech reveals
Keir Starmer has given his first speech as prime minister. Labour’s seventh leader to make it to 10 Downing Street…
Why would anyone choose to live in Puerto Rico?
US bailouts keep this poor relation afloat through bankruptcies, hurricanes and political bust-ups without even trying to boost its demographics or reverse its economic decline