Did George Floyd’s killing give me black privilege?
My time inside the Holodeck was exhilarating, but like all addictions it just masked my other problems and never addressed reality
John le Carré: a man who rose through the English class system as it was collapsing
John le Carré’s voice of old-fashioned English authority was one acquired through merit and bearing rather than birth
Blueprints for laughter, life, love and belonging
Fiction works on the understanding that none of it really happened; we agree to believe it anyway, says John Self
The lost art of the Christmas single
The great Christmas singles came from the broken remains of a country that had forgotten how to be itself
Prokofiev/Miaskovsky: Symphonies (LAWO Classics)
Norman Leberecht laments not being able to give the Oslo Philharmonic the five stars they deserve
Slow death of the know-it-all
Peter Burke’s new book helpfully provokes the reader to think about the proper place of a broad education in an age unfriendly to polymathy
A letter to Jesus
Frederic Raphael poses some pertinent questions to the son of God
Sheldon Adelson: casino magnate and political influencer
Sheldon Adelson, one of Trump’s largest individual donors, has died; leaving his wife to continue their high-stakes political influence over America and Israel
The enduring legacy of Michel Foucault
How the French philosopher founded today’s social justice movement
Reflection in Advent
I am a half-Jewish product of artificial trees, bagels, White Hart Lane, and of two people who knew little of theology but everything of God’s love