London Review of Books
Hitchens: Safe and unsafe
He thought America’s leaders were unworthy of its potential as a great Enlightenment republic
Two cheers for the LRB
The magazine that declares its main aim is to review books does anything but
Life gets worse for verse
Poetry has been put through the academic wringer and obfuscated by jargon
Who let the dons out?
Leave literary reviews to reviewers rather than score-settling academics
Murders for May
A deadly mixture of reprints and new releases
Time for us all to grow up
Why is the modern British novel so terribly earnest and irrepressibly juvenile?
Close, but no cigar
Dilyn the Dog and Bozzo have been playing dress up
Beauties and the beasts
Our urge to anthropomorphise animals obscures the fact that we are all part of the same complex ecosystem
The power of flags
Even in a material age, symbols matter
Bring on the big beasts
Music needs heavyweight champions to stand up for truth and excellence
Pärt, Poulenc, Stravinsky (BR Klassik)
This is a brilliant concert of three sacred works
The fall of Port Stanley
Letters from the Falklands front: no April fool
Gustav Mahler: 4th symphony (Pentatone)
A new recording of Mahler’s smallest symphony is “indispensable” to connoisseurs of his music
Labour’s Wakefield win is nothing to crow over
Maybe turning Labour into the “some-women-have-penises” party isn’t such a popular electoral strategy after all
Feasts in far pavilions
The cricket tea season will soon be upon us