We Do Not Part by Han Kang review – a harrowing journey into South Korea’s bloody history | Fiction in translation

We Do Not Part by Han Kang review – a harrowing journey into South Korea’s bloody history | Fiction in translation

When Han Kang published her International Booker-winning The Vegetarian (2015), translated by Deborah Smith, about a South Korean housewife who gives up meat and wants to become a tree, the novel slotted... Read more »
The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin review – hymn to the exiled and executed | History books

The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin review – hymn to the exiled and executed | History books

Through all the blood and ice of Russian history, the national music has been a balm. Composers and performers have given a voice to the soul of their people, in all its... Read more »
Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah review – hallelujah! A fresh take on the composer’s much-loved work | History books

Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah review – hallelujah! A fresh take on the composer’s much-loved work | History books

I love the amorous mayhem of Handel’s operas, but have always had my doubts about his oratorios, especially the Messiah. First there’s the bossy compulsion to stand during the “Hallelujah” chorus, just... Read more »
A Short History of British Architecture by Simon Jenkins review – Doric columns and grand designs: the greatest hits | Art and design books

A Short History of British Architecture by Simon Jenkins review – Doric columns and grand designs: the greatest hits | Art and design books

“My dream is that people’s eyes will be opened instinctively to their surroundings,” says Simon Jenkins at the end of his new book. “I want people to point at buildings, laugh, cry... Read more »
Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah review – hallelujah! A fresh take on the composer’s much-loved work | History books

The Mordant Intimacy of Cécile Desprairies’s “The Propagandist”

Years ago, a man who was then my fiancé gave me a mourning ring, inscribed with the name and dates of birth and death of a Frenchwoman who lived in the mid-eighteenth... Read more »
The Hugo Awards: A Short History

The Hugo Awards: A Short History

  Read moreUS prisons ban reading materials at alarming pace The Hugo Awards are presented each August for notable achievements in science fiction and science fantasy published in English over the previous... Read more »
We Do Not Part by Han Kang review – a harrowing journey into South Korea’s bloody history | Fiction in translation

Balzac’s Paris: The City as Human Comedy by Eric Hazan review – street spirit | History books

Eric Hazan, a lifelong Parisian who died in June, wrote several books about his hometown, with a particular focus on the class politics of the built environment. In Balzac’s Paris he revisits... Read more »
Credit at last for female screenwriter airbrushed from Hollywood history | Movies

Credit at last for female screenwriter airbrushed from Hollywood history | Movies

To screenwriters in the 1950s, she was a major power player, fighting for pay rises and striking rights. To the Hollywood studio heads, she was “the meanest bitch in town”. Read moreUS... Read more »
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