What would Marcus Aurelius have made of the Kardashians? Would Seneca have been amused by mindfulness apps? These were questions I had never consciously pondered before reading Maria Semple’s new novel. Neither,... Read more »
M, a 50-year-old novelist living in an idyllic place by a lake, is travelling to a literary festival to give a talk. A sequence of events, mostly beyond her control, leaves her stranded... Read more »
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado will publish a book in the US that lays out her vision for Venezuela’s political reconstruction as the country faces significant upheaval. The 120-page work titled... Read more »
What happens when an internationally bestselling historian, a Nobel peace prize-winning journalist and a former politician get together to discuss the state of the world, and where we’re heading? Yuval Noah Harari... Read more »
Brazil has elected its first Black woman to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, founded in 1897 and modelled on the Académie Française. Ana Maria Gonçalves, 54, is one of Brazil’s most acclaimed... Read more »
On 24 June 1965 a young woman sat her eight-month-old baby girl on a blanket in the gardens of the Villa Borghese in Rome, and walked quickly away. Within minutes, a passerby spotted the tiny child,... Read more »
It’s more than 100 years since the birth of Greek-American soprano Maria Callas, and still no one in the opera world has rivalled her. Equally resilient is her reputation as a prima... Read more »