How music can be weaponized
Rebel Sounds is an uplifting compendium of hidden histories of those who have produced, performed and distributed music in times of war
Books
Monday
The Position of Spoons is flawed but fascinating
Deborah Levy’s latest book is a sketch of the author in motion
Why Shakespeare remains the great playwright
Rhodri Lewis’s book offers so many fresh insights and well-turned phrases that I had to buy a new notebook to fit them all in
The real Kennedy men
Maureen Callahan challenges us to ask whether our American heroes are really who we think they are
This month in culture: November 2024
What to watch this November
Saturday
Catherine Nixey’s Heresy is a joy to read
Nixey takes us on a tour across the early centuries of Christianity
Thursday
Michael Richards’s memoir is heavier on introspection than laughs
Entrances and Exits shows the Seinfeld actor’s clever, energetic, dissatisfied, self-critical mind at work
Charles Baxter’s Blood Test is a necessary novel
The novel’s central conceit serves as a sharp satire of our data-driven, algorithmic age
Will Self’s impressive paean to his mother’s frustrating life in the US
In Elaine , Self has shown that understanding is possible, across generations and across time
Back to the birth of the Greenwich Village music scene
David Browne’s latest book pivots around 1961
This month in culture: October 2024
Our staff picks what to watch out for this October
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