Books
Brass and bullshit
Influencer is just another name for snake-oil salesman
Very essence of a Jewish writer’s life
Howard Jacobson stands his life on its head
Writing outside the box
Elena Ferrante’s essay collection is an exploration of the delights and constraints of form
A trip to Heaney country
The fiftieth anniversary of Seamus Heaney’s Wintering Out is a chance to recognise the importance of place to his poetry
Smashed stereotypes or revisionist reveries?
Why judge prohibitionists by their words when we can judge them by their actions?
The unheard lessons of howling feedback
Separating the signal from the noise
A return, a reissue, a brilliant new voice
The best, and the not-so-great, new fiction to read this month
Searching in vain for Hitler’s lethal edict
These two new histories of the holocaust add little to what is already known
What’s behind that enigmatic smile?
The author of a new novel about the Mona Lisa explores the history of the world’s most famous painting
Golden boy turned starstruck rube
The self-justifying self-portrait of a journalist who never made it
Most Read
The Book of JO’B
James O’Brien’s aggressive incuriosity is becoming ever more embattled as his worldview crumbles
A failed war on fags
The black market has taken over the tobacco trade Down Under
Thank God for Brexit
The EU is a bureaucratic monster and Britain is better off out
I don’t trust the British state
British institutions simply are not functioning in the interests of the people they are meant to serve
The lonely death of Henry Nowak
We must draw lessons from a horrendous and disgraceful case
Rich portrait of a master poet
Auden, Peter Ackroyd
Save our green and pleasant land
It’s time to stop ruining Britain’s countryside with drab, identikit houses and instead build real places with focus, heart and purpose
Left-wingers are wallowing in post-truth politics
Complaints about right-wing “fake news” have obscured the biggest misinformation problem
Wrestling with realignment
Labour will use the Irish Sea border as an excuse to realign with the EU’s rules
Louis Through
The left-leaning media has lost its moral and institutional authority
The problem with price freezes
Freezing prices is not half as simple (or cheap) as politicians often think
Russia’s useful internet addicts
No, Russia is not a beleaguered outpost of European values
Kemi always gets it right
Whatever the crisis, the Conservative leader invariably discovers that events have vindicated her.
Paris cinema
There are no songs or movies about Paris in the winter
The end of anonymity?
The moral norms of the internet are being destroyed by zero sum politics
Givers and takers
Britain needs a fairer and more moral economic system