Extremes of passion: What Will Survive of Us, by Howard Jacobson, reviewed
On first meeting, Sam and Lily both suffer a coup de foudre and embark on an affair involving submission and sado-masochism. But where will it lead?
Victims of a cruel prejudice: the last two men to be executed for sodomy in England
Chris Bryant describes in painful detail how James Pratt and John Smith, working-class men from the Midlands, fell foul of the ‘bloodthirsty English justice system’ in 1835
Saviours of souls: the heroism of lifeboat crews
Helen Doe’s moving history of the RNLI celebrates the volunteers who, over the centuries, have risked their own lives for those in peril on the sea
Heartbreak in the workplace: Green Dot, by Madeleine Gray, reviewed
Hera is 24, bisexual and usually dates women. But her infatuation with Arthur, an older, married journalist in her office, grows all-consuming
Progressives vs. bigots: How I Won a Nobel Prize, by Julius Taranto, reviewed
When a quantum physicist and her partner reluctantly move to a university staffed by cancelled luminaries the scene is set for a darkly comic clash of ideologies
Thugs in drape jackets: when the Teddy Boys ruled the roost
Bleak 1950s Britain saw the birth of the first working-class youth counterculture, but the Teds were a surprisingly short-lived – if violent – phenomenon
