Intellectuals

Revelling in reading: The Enchanting Lives of Others, by Can Xue, reviewed

28 February 2026 9:00 am

A group of young fiction enthusiasts and intellectuals channel their energies into devouring novels – and marvel at how enlightened it makes them feel

Four disparate intellectuals

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Of Wolfram Eilenberger’s four intellectual heroines, Simone Weil alone really counts as a ‘visionary’, forsaking philosophy for a kind of saintly mysticism

Trahison des clercs — a phrase that dates back all the way to 1927

3 March 2018 9:00 am

I had long associated the phrase trahison des clercs with the writer Geoffrey Wheatcroft, though I can’t put my finger…