Reviews
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Wifedom by Anna Funder review – a brilliant reckoning with George Orwell to change the way you read
Blending forensic research, fiction, life writing and criticism, Funder upends the legacy of literary triumph to reveal the woman behind…
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Breathe review – Sadiq Khan’s climate emergency manifesto is a breath of fresh air
Sadiq Khan’s first book is ostensibly structured as a self-help title in the vein of, say, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of…
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‘The Last Animal’ is a bright-eyed meditation on what animates us
Even more profoundly, why is a family? Jason Heller npr Entire wings of the literary canon have confronted these questions, usually…
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How Westminster Works … and Why It Doesn’t by Ian Dunt review – a savage indictment of the status quo
Ian Dunt starts his lacerating analysis of Westminster with an extended case history Kathryn Hughes The Guardian It concerns Chris Grayling at…
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Eros, beauty and friction: what happened when Susan Johnson took her 85-year-old mother to live on a Greek island
This is what Susan Johnson longed for and did, taking her mother with her to the Greek island of Kythera.…
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The Galaxies Within
The mind-bending fiction of Mircea Cărtărescu. Will Self The Nation In his celebrated 1873 essay “On Truth and Lies in…
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Colonialism by Nigel Biggar review – a flawed defence of empire
A reappraisal of colonialism by an Oxford professor strains credulity and ill serves his aim of defending ‘western values’ Kenan…
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How the 20 year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey
The seemingly unstoppable rise of political Islam throughout the turbulent 1990s had finally culminated in a much-dreaded loss for a…
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Margo Jefferson and the Art of Life
In her work, especially her new book Constructing a Nervous System, she transforms criticism into an experience one feels in…
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Hilma af Klint: A Biography by Julia Voss review – portrait of the painter as a mystic
The voices in her head told Hilma af Klint she would be a great artist. Madoc Cairns The Guardian They…
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Command by Lawrence Freedman review – inside the war room
From Korea to Ukraine, a brilliant study of the politics and personalities that drive modern conflicts John Simpson The Guardian…
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Bravery, insight and simmering fury: Australian female correspondents on speaking truth to power
It never has. Sue Joseph The Conversation I am always far more interested in elegantly rendered content. Whether it’s written…
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The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman review – Soviet wartime propaganda with a human face
Some authors have a very active afterlife, though the results when the writer’s literary estate dips its hand in the…
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Witty and relevant, a stage adaptation of Alice Pung’s Laurinda is filled with intelligence and humour
The Melbourne Theatre Company’s Laurinda is a smart re-framing of Alice Pung’s classic coming-of-age novel about the racism inherent in…
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Post Fact Figments
As if the collective Cypriot mind didn’t have enough trouble distinguishing myth from historical reality, along comes Andreas Hadjikyriacos with…
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‘Can you come to my party?’: What it’s like to have your novel studied at schools
For Maxine Beneba Clarke, the excitement of being included on school reading lists was quickly matched by the realities of…
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