PTSD
Pain passed down: a portrait of Russia and the war that dare not speak its name
Seierstad’s new book has an antihero as its central figure, whose story, and that of Russia itself, is above all about violence and its corollaries: pain, callousness, neglect and always, everywhere, alcohol. While the other heroic Russians are not ignored, this is essentially a salutary read
MDMA should be licensed for veterans with PTSD
‘Stuff starts to get real, real quick,’ recalls former US Marine, Tyler Flanigan. An Iraqi sniper had just shot out…
Private battles: Twelve Post-War Tales, by Graham Swift, reviewed
The latest short stories focus on everyday traumas: ageing, PTSD in a former soldier, and the loss of a parent, spouse or grandchild
The art of war
On his deathbed, the Austrian writer Karl Kraus remarked of the Japanese attack on Manchuria: ‘None of this would have…
There’s nothing shameful about hypochondria
Caroline Crampton describes the real agonies of people obsessed with their fragility, revealing that her own hypochondria stems from a childhood cancer diagnosis
High life
Gstaad Lord Belhaven and Stenton, a wonderful man and the quintessential English gentleman, died at 93 just before the end…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
A book about sleep that will keep you up all night
I’ve read several books about sleep recently, and their authors all tell me the same three things. The first is…
High life
Welcome to 2015, the year that speaking and writing freely had to stop. Anything that might cause trauma to anyone…
