Novel
Playing the victim
A new book satirises the bizarre dynamics of social justice activism
A genius, a journalist and a little gem
A bit of lucky timing cannot be begrudged
The elegant extremist
Ian McEwan has always tempered his shocking stories with polished prose
Words can never hurt?
A new satire skewers the publishing industry
Cutting Edge
A new novel brilliantly skewers gender theory
The feud that made the modern age
A new book breathes new life into historical fiction
Rediscovering Martin Amis
He made reading, and writing, fun
Two portraits of troubled art scholars
A pair of debut novels revive the serious business of art history
More like a lecture
“Lessons” is Ian McEwan at his worst
The ascent of Barbara Pym
A chronicler of the overlooked, she has at last got her just literary deserts
Cultural Christianity and the vulgar wisdom of memes
Dawkins is caught between the pure idea of rationalism, and the messy meme of cultural Christianity
Google has a history problem
As much as we might wish that history had been different, virtue cannot grow from the soil of falsehood
Legal laughs
Legal “humour” is seldom more than mildly amusing
Three novelists pushing the bloat out
Some novels still dare to leave the reader’s hand unheld — without universal success
The truth is out there
Henry Staunton is dismissed as dangerously “erratic” by the powers that be, but he may just be telling the truth, no matter how weird
A talented pianist and a battered piano
Bezhod Abduraimov: Shadows of my ancestors (Alpha-Classics)
Bring back the Law Lords
Tony Blair’s introduction of a US-style Supreme Court has served to undermine the supremacy of Parliament
Why the goal glut?
Football — never boring, even when Italy is defending a 1–0 lead — has only grown more exciting
Escaping Plato’s goon cave
Vision Pro illuminates the telos of modernity and the narrowing of human experience
Sunak, false equivalence and the phantom far right
There is no comparison between the threat of Islamism and the threat of the far right
Teaching leftists about tax
Sometimes, an argument about economic policy is like an oil spill
