This month in culture: October 2024
Our staff picks what to watch out for this October
Books
Thursday
Monday
The chameleonic life of Claire Clairmont
Lesley McDowell restores Lord Byron’s young lover and Mary Shelley’s step-sister to thrilling, palpitating life
Thursday
Nick Lloyd takes you through the horrors of the Eastern Front
The book’s primary focus on military detail and power-brokering is both a strength and weakness
Monday
Twenty years on from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Since its publication in September 2004, Susanna Clarke’s novel has sold millions of copies worldwide
Giles Milton retells the story of the Grand Alliance as a cinematic thriller
In the hands of a less skilled writer, The Stalin Affair could easily have been rather dull
The peculiar appeal of ‘sad-girl literature’
Prose style matters less than access to toxic love, pain and suffering… and a light smattering of suicide and violent death
Examining children’s literature and its enduring worth
One of The Haunted Wood’s great strengths is Sam Leith’s awareness of just how important children’s literature is
Creation Lake is one of the best books of the year
Creation Lake is a book about how humans deal with what is deemed to be Other
Jane Thynne pulls off a new kind of spy novel
Midnight in Vienna channels the ominous parallels between the present-day rise of fascism in Europe and America with what happened in 1938
This month in culture: September 2024
What to watch this September
Thursday
A superbly written and insightful account of the contemporary American military
General McKenzie’s fine memoir is a rich and powerful testament to the qualities that our best military commanders bring to their service to the nation
A compelling and evocative biography of the redoubtable Mrs. Mandelbaum
Margalit Fox brings the period to life by providing sharply drawn cameos of a supporting cast of colorful characters
Pat Nixon, ambassador of goodwill
In a new biography of the former First Lady, Heath Hardage Lee attempts to uncover the real woman
James Shapiro’s timely account of the rise and fall of an influential public theater
The Playbook is a dramatic tale, full of overreaching ambition, dastardly plots, embattled heroes and last-minute reversals
A new and compelling study of the life of the iconic rebel Nat Turner
Anthony Kaye seeks to reframe the life of the famous slave rebel in the context of his religious beliefs
Devil in the detail
How do we recognize the real manifestation of evil in the world? Two new books set out to answer this question and prove that it is a timely one
This month in culture: August 2024
What should be on your radar this August
Monday
Anne Applebaum’s solutions to the ‘threat’ of autocracy
Autocracy, Inc. is woefully inadequate to the times in which it appears
John Freeman’s Hit and Run is gorgeously crafted
This is a work about significant moments, glittering with reflections and refractions
Stephen King’s You Like it Darker shows a master at his peak
You Like It Darker inevitably harks back to Carrie, King’s debut novel, published fifty years ago this spring