Books

Are we killing ourselves with kindness?

Stefan Zweig’s 1939 novel ‘Beware of Pity’ now screams to have its message heeded

Crooked compendium

Ms Lees offers a new take on the template, but she is walking a well-trodden path

Unravelling the myth of George Soros

Emily Tamkin’s ‘The Influence of Soros’ is a lucid, subtle and fair-minded attempt to grapple with a tremendously complex legacy

Mystery of the clicking keyboard

Out of the Ether is an excellent primer on Ethereum, but the general reader might find the minutiae a bit much

Learning from the past

Much of Wisdom of the Ancients makes one appreciate how we get sidetracked by so much trivial nonsense

J’accuse: the legal system in the dock

As a pupil, Alexandra Wilson frequently encountered racially loaded assumptions. In court, clients assumed she was a defendant

Francisco Goya: the embodiment of old Spain

Janis Tomlinson’s new biography of Francisco Goya is a well-informed, comprehensive biography that would make an excellent gift for any art lover

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 lighter shade of grey

This scholarly, readable and objective book will be the standard biography of Sir Edward Grey for decades to come

Murders for January

Jeremy Black recommends the best murder mysteries to read in the New Year