John Steinbeck
The land of missed opportunity: The Left and the Lucky, by Willy Vlautin, reviewed
A bullied eight-year-old forms a bond with his caring, middle-aged neighbour in a heartbreaking novel of modern America’s underclass
The typo that spelled death in the Soviet Union
When Pravda Vostoka misprinted Joseph Stalin’s military rank on 25 October 1944, most of the print run was destroyed and the editorial team was shot
Cancelling To Kill a Mockingbird is a step too far
It often feels like we’re living through the revenge of the talentless. Cancel culture is essentially a war of no-marks…
Nature beats nurture nearly every time
I’ve been doing some thinking recently about the findings of behavioural geneticists and their implications for education policy. For instance,…
Matters of life and death
‘Bait by Cartier,’ she growls as her priceless diamond bracelet is strapped to a piece of rope and dropped overboard…
Blazing saddles
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Anjelica Huston’s is worth reading. In her Prologue she writes that as a child she modeled…
Gossip, gossip from all the nations
Under normal circumstances, Simon Garfield’s chatty and informative excursion into the history of letter-writing would be a book to recommend.…
