Literature
A Yiddish colossus
Isaac Bashevis Singer would never have submitted to today’s ideological edicts
Medicalising art
Literature needs better friends
Our kids need sad books
They appreciate beautiful melancholy
A sharp and shrewd look at Lawrence
A dialectical mind, Lawrence is modern in his resistance to labels
“Dear Ezra … Yours Ever, B Bunting”
The voice of a poet whose chequered career reads like a cockeyed novel
Harold Pinter: from bad to verse
The playwright will not be remembered for his poetry
Why do we like Larkin so much?
On a love with limits
Amanda Scrimgeour: Glamour hound
Some people are born to rake over the coals of ancient scandals
The rise and fall of Sad White Men
Novels about middle class male malaise are now considered passé but they were once both groundbreaking and shocking
Good God, I can’t publish this…
The ancient art of the literary rejection
England is not yet lost
Where else would you rather be from?
“Bold vision”
An action or choice can perfectly well be bold without being good
Getting the measure of the Russian bear
A defensive concern under the right conditions can morph into a warrant for brutal expansionism
Oasis: the good boys of rock and roll
For guitar bands since punk, there’s been a tension between credibility and success
Hatred without end
A year on from October 7th, mutual dehumanisation and refusal of moral responsibility characterises our “debate” over the Gaza war
Leo Varadkar is still stirring division
The former Taoiseach should have more humility
Public sector pay
Bumper pay rises for doctors and teachers are bound to result in higher inflation
One of the greats
Bathos, fatalism, heartbreak: these are the pillars of a MacColl song
Free speech defenders should practice what they preach
There should be no illiberal exception for anti-Zionist academics
Making a difference
Over the past five years we’ve been keeping things civilised
We are missing the important point on procurement
Systemic dysfunction is far more important than individual failures
