Has Tibet finally lost out to China?
Religion remains at the heart of Beijing’s determination to subdue and transform Tibet.
Books
Thursday
The electrifying genius of Nikola Tesla
Richard Munson’s ‘Tesla: Inventor of the Modern’ emphasises the duality of his subject.
Friday
A reply to my critics: Don’t fight racism with racism
Dear 2016 WriteNow mentees, Thanks so much for your open letter to me. It seems only good manners for me to write back. You’re rightly proud of having been admitted to a challenging programme at Penguin Random House that mentors gifted young minority authors and helps to cultivate their talents. My own publisher, HarperCollins, runs … Read more
Thursday
A Shout in the Ruins is a panorama of the Civil War and beyond
The second novel from Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers contains lots of gore, and the sort of casual violence that can be just as disturbing.
From Don Quixote to My Struggle — a survey of the novel in 160 pages
By the end of the book, you will feel as though you have read quite a bit of Javier Cercas’ fiction.
Death-defying acts and the dark side of the circus
Tessa Fontaine was convinced that her sick mother wouldn’t survive a trip to Italy with her stepfather. So she ran away to the circus.
The short step from good manners to lofty imperialism
In a world increasingly shaped by encounters with other cultures, the English started to form theories in which their own evolved behaviour resembled the pinnacle of possible civilisation.
Wednesday
The comic masterpiece of Donald J. Trump
Conrad Black explains how the President consistently and hilariously outplays his enemies, provoking and then exploiting the friction between him and them to raise himself to ever greater heights.
Tuesday
It’s the wreckage of alcoholism, not the road to recovery, that makes for enthralling reading
Leslie Jamison is aware of the problem. And one tries hard not to prefer her chapters on disaster to those that treat repair
The story of the last living survivor of the Atlantic slave trade is a high adventure
Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon, written in the 1930s, appears now in book form for the first time. It has been well worth the wait
Friday
Lionel Shriver and the rigging of the book market
Should the arts reflect the demographic make-up of their society, and be subject to quotas and affirmative action, in the name of diversity? Or should they be exempt from the imposition of quotas, as a meritocracy in which the only affirmative action is the one that recognises talent? This, I reckon, is the question at … Read more
Thursday
American Histories, by John Edgar Wideman, reviewed
This new collection of John Edgar Wideman’s short stories comes across the pond as one of four handsomely packaged volumes from Canongate. Little known in this country, he towers large in his native States; a MacArthur Genius fellow, a PEN/Faulkner Award winner twice, winner of the Prix Femina Etranger last year, endorsed by Richard Ford … Read more
Russia’s obsession with securing a warm-water port changed the history of Central Asia
In the 13th century, having overrun and terrorised Europe as far as Budapest, and in the process possibly bringing with them the flea which caused the Black Death, the heirs to Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde had also conquered territory to the east as far as the Korean peninsular. The assiduous Swiss scholar and … Read more
Sunday
When diversity means uniformity
I’d been suffering under the misguided illusion that the purpose of mainstream publishers like Penguin Random House was to sell and promote fine writing. A colleague’s forwarded email has set me straight. Sent to a literary agent, presumably this letter was also fired off to the agents of the entire Penguin Random House stable. The … Read more
Thursday
Stormy weather: Florida, by Lauren Groff, reviewed
Over the past decade Lauren Groff has written three novels; she now returns to the short story form in this, her second collection. Last year she was named as one of the best young American novelists by Granta, a reputation that’s been growing since the 2015 publication of her critically acclaimed Fates and Furies, a … Read more
The Tibetan Passion Book puts the Kama Sutra in the shade
The Tibetan artist and poet Gendun Chopel was born in 1903. He was identified as an incarnate lama, and ordained as a Buddhist monk. In 1934 he renounced his vows, quit Tibet for India, learned Sanskrit and — if his long poem, ususally translated as A Treatise on Passion, is to be taken at face … Read more
Monday
Speeding along the highway in America’s coolest cars
In a study of young people and cars, it is a shame that the key role of music is not more fully addressed.
Thursday
‘Steer clear of that cave boy, James Dean, and grease ball, Elvis Presley’
Clancy Sigal’s posthumous autobiography is sex, guns and celebrity from start to finish.
The marvellous humanity of Meg Wolitzer
The author delicately slides from comedy to tragedy and back again, and from class to class.
You didn’t have to be mad to work for Tommy Nutter — but it helped
How an eccentric tailor took over Savile Row in the late 60s.