Non-Fiction
Strongholds and strong women
Three non-fiction works beat out the general mediocrity of 2022
Walking the path of the stupidly rich
Serious Money tracks the excesses and indulgences of those with wealth to burn
The Critic Books Podcast: Portable Magic
Lucasta Miller discusses Emma Smith’s new book
Fishing with Ted Hughes
A new memoir finds the poet in a world of rivers, rods, and reels
Narcisssism and the naked arts graduate
This call for an overhaul of the sex industry is self-indulgent and short-sighted
Seductive, scholarly life of the poet-priest
This new biography of John Donne brings the centuries-dead poet to life
Writing outside the box
Elena Ferrante’s essay collection is an exploration of the delights and constraints of form
When bad reviews attack
Book reviews are not the preserve of the literary dilettantes — they have real power
The Nineties: smells like Gen X nostalgia
Chuck Klosterman’s book sheds rose-tinted light on the decade
The Critic Books Podcast: Bacon in Moscow
What was it like to take Francis Bacon to the USSR?
Confessions of a Melbourne Bus-Fare Evader
I am become bus, destroyer of bourgeois class consciousness
Israel, the ICJ and the plausibility of genocide
Commentators are misunderstanding the provisional measures of the International Court of Justice
A book about nothing
A new collection from Adrian Chiles is certainly curious
The afterlife of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko
Reflections on forty years since his death shook communist Poland
The effects of Brexit are still being misreported
A new paper has received a lot of attention — all of it undeserved
Carole Cadwalladr’s conspiracy theory
The feverish paranoia obscures valid questions
The esoterica trap
We should not pollute good causes with unreliable information
Smacking harms children
Smacking didn’t harm you? Maybe this debate isn’t for you
On the King’s Road to ruin
The decline of commerce on Chelsea’s celebrated street is a worrying sign for London
The downfall of the podcast-industrial complex
How did some of our finest podcasters get the election so wrong?
A real plan for growth
A series of simple economic blunders has led to self-defeating policies that strangle any chance of prosperity for all
