Publishing
Grubbing a living
These two books show that it has always been the preserve of the unscrupulous to peddle their wares to the gullible and salacious
Sally Rooney and cultural boycotts
Rooney has now run into greater controversy than simple literary taste
Scheherazade scoops the pot
Women now dominate the literary landscape
Publish — or be damned
There’s no wonder that books are becoming more conformist when freedom of expression is being curtailed
Goodbye to the Blonds
The generation of idiosyncratic proprietors who changed the face of the British book industry
Writing bigly
Jordan Peterson’s trouble with his publisher will look mild when compared with Donald Trump’s impending book
The YA boo gang
Young Adult fiction has become cancel culture’s savage front line
Power without pain
Social media “platforms” such as Twitter and Facebook plainly are publishers.
They should be held to account as such
Independent minds
Small local publishers are putting out the brightest and best new work
Beyond unthrilled by all the hype
When a new major title by a big cheese arrives, expect a tidal wave of rolled logs
Miriam Cates is right about surrogacy
It is a fundamentally dishonest and exploitative practice
Dumbing down the priesthood
Unless the Church reinstates rigorous college-based training for clerics, it will wither away
A Good Read should be better
Some weeks there are comedians and groovy journalists — others it’s groovy journalists and comedians
The dangers of digital media
By abandoning physical media, have we exposed ourselves to censorship and corporate control?
Who edits the editor?
The bright young things of publishing want to be involved in every line of every new book
The quaintness of the campaign against public schools
The abuse was terrible but its relevance to modern politics is dubious
End of the Biden farce?
The President’s fragility has been obvious for years — but was he ever in control?
How the Greens blackened their name
The leadership of the Greens allowed gender fundamentalism to undermine the party
Immigration enthusiasts and problematic polling
New analysis made British voters look far more pro-migration than they are
Crocodile Keir
For all of Sunak’s shoddy timing, Starmer’s opportunism was pathetic
The fallacy of soft power
The world runs on cold national self interest, not cultural capital
