Joe Dunthorne tells us he originally envisaged this book as a story of his grandmother’s childhood escape from the Nazis; the reality turned out to be more complex. Narrated with the twists... Read more »
The top blurb on Fara Dabhoiwala’s new book describes it as a “remarkable global history of free speech”. But it isn’t, and throwing in an interesting chapter on the press in British-occupied... Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »
âMy dream is that peopleâs eyes will be opened instinctively to their surroundings,â says Simon Jenkins at the end of his new book. âI want people to point at buildings, laugh, cry... Read more »
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 are presented each August for notable achievements in science fiction and science fantasy published in English over the previous year. Widely considered the most prestigious award in the... Read more »
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 Balzacâs Paris he revisits... Read more »