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London Review of Books@londonreview.bsky.social |
1709 followers 412 following 254 posts
The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, published every fortnight. www.lrb.co.uk
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘A global crisis over Taiwan would be a disaster for the world. Yet in their talk of Wehrmachts and victory, supporters of a war with China appear to yearn for that disaster.’
@tomstevenson.bsky.social on Sino-American relations:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Does anyone really believe that Israel would hold back from its atrocities in Gaza and violent expansionism on the West Bank for fear that France might formally recognise Palestine?’
Jeremy Harding on Macron and Israel:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘How has the widespread assumption of water’s neutrality come about? Who gets to say what water does taste like, how it ought to taste, whether its sensory aspects do or do not testify to its quality? How do you know if the water is good?’
Steven Shapin:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘If Somer and his fellows were “just” fools, not shadow political advisers, trusted confidantes or licensed truth-tellers, what remains? Ideology only tells us so much.’
Clare Bucknell on Tudor fools:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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16 per cent of Americans agree with the statement that ‘the government, media and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping paedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.’ RFK Jr is their man.
Deborah Friedell:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘In person she had an un-doll-like vitality. Keith Johnstone, a director at the Royal Court Theatre, for which she designed posters and programmes, described her as “so full of life that her skin seemed hardly able to contain her”.’
Rosemary Hill on Pauline Boty:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘V.R. Lang is particularly good at dramatising states of vindictiveness – and, it seems, could be imaginatively vengeful in life too.’
Mark Ford on a new selection of poet and dramatist ‘Bunny’ Lang’s work:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Walter Benjamin once remarked that the memory of oppressed ancestors is more catalytic of rebellion than any dream of liberated descendants; Käthe Kollwitz seems to agree.’
Hal Foster on the Kollwitz retrospective at MoMA:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Where do national myths originate? They do not emerge by happenstance. Rather their creation and spread are an exercise of power.’
Eric Foner reviews Richard Slotkin’s ‘A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America’:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Saddam Hussein believed that the CIA knew full well his weapons store was empty – which meant he was the subject of yet another conspiracy. Experience had taught him that was usually the case, and he was right.’
Andrew Cockburn on Iraq:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘On the three major issues driving Iran’s steep decline – the collapsing economy, relations with the West and the state’s refusal to give women citizenship rights – none of the candidates has explicit solutions.’
New: Azadeh Moaveni on the Iranian elections:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘I’m now increasingly wanting to talk about a Grenfell law, and the right learning from Grenfell is to enshrine in UK law a decent safe home as a human right. It shouldn’t be “you might be lucky, you might not.”’
Andy Burnham, interviewed by @jamesmeek.bsky.social:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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Our new issue, 46.13, is now online, featuring:
James Meek on the housing crisis
William Davies on 14 years of Tory rule
Andrew Cockburn on CIA meddling in Iraq
Clare Bucknell on Henry VIII’s fool
Rosemary Hill on Pauline Boty
Jeremy Harding on France and Israel
Read now at lrb.co.uk
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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In 1982, the Argentine battleship the 𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘰 was sunk by the British navy, killing over 300 people.
THE BELGRANO DIARY, our documentary podcast series, investigates the sinking and the national scandal that followed.
Listen here:
lrb.me/belgrano
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘What is it that is coming to a close? This fourteen-year fever dream of failures, absurdities and outbursts of reaction defies the neat periodisation or symbolisation with which the Thatcher and Blair epochs have become fixed.’
William Davies in the next issue:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘There's literally no part of the state, arguably except academic results in schools, that is vaguely on track or where it was a decade ago.’
Sam Freedman (@samfr.bsky.social) and James Butler on the dire state of the UK. Listen wherever you get podcasts, or here:
www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘Bristol is a deeply divided city, socially, ethnically and culturally. The leafy villas of Clifton look down on much poorer zones below, with areas marked by extreme poverty, drug use and homelessness.’
John Foot on Bristol’s Green wave:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/ju...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘As created beings, we chafe. Only as makers – of art or children – are we fully achieved. Go forth and create, 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦 concludes.’
Ange Mlinko reads Rachel Cusk’s new novel:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The stage management of her public persona was balanced with an exploration of female creativity and the risky yet productive borderlands between the professional and the personal.’
Brigid von Preussen on Angelica Kauffman at the @royalacademy.bsky.social:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The intractable sense of exhaustion which attends British politics – not only in this election – is a signal of crisis in its institutions and ideologies.’
The latest election dispatch from James Butler, new on the blog:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/ju...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘These men are old. Of the 37 who took part in the occupation, fourteen are dead. For the remaining 23, time is running out.’
Tabitha Lasley on the workers blacklisted for occupying Birkenhead’s Cammell Laird shipyard in 1984 and their fight for justice:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The opening scenes of Viggo Mortensen’s new film, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘏𝘶𝘳𝘵, are like an essay in montage or a puzzle for students of Sergei Eisenstein and André Bazin.’
Michael Wood at the movies:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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the dark from the woods closes in on myself alone,
the animals watching, the older gods
couched in the shadows.
Decades ago, I suppose,
though I cannot be sure.
‘The Persistence of Memory’, a previously unpublished poem by John Burnside:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The independence movement may not have been as transformative as its supporters hoped, but it was, for a time, genuinely exciting. It raised the political stakes.’
Rory Scothorne on the campaign for Scottish independence and its legacy:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘Writing a novel, for Queneau, should be no different from writing a poem: it requires obedience to formal strictures that have been determined in advance.’
@djbduncan.bsky.social on a new translation of Raymond Queneau’s 1947 novel 𝘓𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘦 𝘙𝘦𝘶𝘪𝘭:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘British politics was now a two-horse race. This had, of course, been one of Labour’s aims when it took office; the 1924 election made clear that this process was unfolding on terms dictated by the Conservatives.’
Malcolm Petrie on Labour’s beginnings:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘When you’re making health policy, when you’re making housing policy, transport policy, agricultural policy, policy on tax and inequality, all of these things are in a way a climate policy.’
James Butler, Ann Pettifor and Adrienne Buller on the podcast: www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘I know the books so well that looking at them on the shelf is like reading them. What she created for me, in the Frederica quartet, was a kind of internal geography.’
@tricialockwood.bsky.social on A.S. Byatt:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The move from persuasive facsimile to deliberate forgery was complete. He was no longer simply a collector of “modern first editions”: now he was manufacturing them too.’
Gill Partington on Thomas James Wise, who forged more than fifty rare books:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Why has human suffering on the scale Haidt describes failed to provoke more of a critical and political response over the past fifteen years?’
William Davies on the unprecedented surge in anxiety among young people, and the quest for an explanation:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The cover of the Labour manifesto promises, simply, “change”, but raises the question: how much?’
New on the blog from James Butler:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/ju...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The scientific and manifest stories of the mind are not incompatible, but they are disparate. Why think we have to make them fit in? At least part of the answer for Dennett was his distrust of the miraculous.’
Anil Gomes on the philosopher’s memoir:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘That austerity was ideological, unnecessary and ultimately futile in terms of its stated objectives should be at the front of our minds whenever we consider its consequences.’
Tom Crewe on fourteen years of Conservative government:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘Psychoanalysis and American pragmatism are uneasy bedfellows; they fall out over the phrase “knowing what you want”.’
Adam Phillips on Richard Rorty’s readings and misreadings of Freud:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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🏳️⚧️ Millennial Horniness is Not a Crime
@josie.zone
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Amazing, vertiginous essay from Adam Shatz in the London Review of Books:
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Zuri Linetsky
@zurilinetsky.bsky.social
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This Adam Shatz piece for @londonreview.bsky.social is amazing. “The military operation in Gaza has altered the shape, perhaps even the meaning, of the struggle over Palestine.”
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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Tricia Lockwood
@tricialockwood.bsky.social
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I wrote about my dear departed a.s. byatt for @londonreview.bsky.social! www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
4 replies 11 reposts 77 likes
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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... Ange Mlinko on Rachel Cusk
Brigid von Preussen on Angelica Kauffman
Dennis Duncan on the novels of Raymond Queneau
Michael Wood on Viggo Mortensen’s ‘The Dead Don’t Hurt’
and a cover by Jon McNaught.
Read now at:
www.lrb.co.uk
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London Review of Books
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Also in this issue: a previously unpublished poem by John Burnside Malcolm Petrie on the first Labour government Tabitha Lasley on the Cammell Laird strike of 1984 Rory Scothorne on Scottish independence Gill Partington on book forgery...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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Our new issue, 46.12, is now online, featuring:
Tom Crewe on fourteen years of the Conservatives
@tricialockwood.bsky.social on A.S. Byatt
Adam Shatz on Zionism
William Davies on Generation Anxiety
and Adam Phillips on getting the life you want.
Read now at www.lrb.co.uk
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘There is only one way to end the criminality and danger associated with illegal crossings: to establish safe and legal routes for those fleeing conflict to claim asylum in the UK.’
Georgie Newson in Calais:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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To be kissed by something more than the raw sunset wind is what all the old men in Beckett long for too, she thinks, and we have the same overcoat.
A poem by Anne Carson in the latest issue:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
@londonreview.bsky.social
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‘The story set up at the outset – a woman forced to consider leaving her unfaithful husband – doesn’t go away altogether but becomes richer, multilayered and unexpected, defying logic yet wholly tenable.’
Blake Morrison on Colm Tóibín’s 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘐𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Israel cannot imagine a future with its neighbours or its own Palestinian citizens in which it would no longer rely on force.’
Adam Shatz on Israel’s descent, from the next issue and online early:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... …
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London Review of Books
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‘There were two major areas of concern for most feminists at the Voice: work and sexual pleasure. For me, it was the former.’
Vivian Gornick on her time at the 𝘝𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘝𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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Deep beneath the Gran Sasso mountains in northern Italy, physicists have been surveilling huge vats of liquid xenon for about twenty years, looking out for the telltale flashes of light that signify an incoming WIMP.
They haven’t seen any yet.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘In the silence, one imagines the bird has come to the end of a verse and is considering, with the ease and confidence of a seasoned performer, where to take the song next.’
Mary Wellesley on nightingales:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘Instead of having strikes, we would not have strikes. Instead of things that don’t work, we should have things that do work instead. Instead of the economy doing badly, it should do well.’
James Butler on the triviality of TV debates:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/ju...
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London Review of Books
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‘Benjamin characterised the Surrealists as anarchists who, however much they might disquiet the bourgeoisie (“to which we belong”), retained “a liberal-moral-humanistic concept of freedom” that required the discipline of the Party.’
Hal Foster:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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London Review of Books
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‘There is no necessary contradiction between living a middle-class life and holding left-wing convictions.’
Stefan Collini reads 𝘈𝘯 𝘜𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘐𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, Polly Toynbee’s account of her family as a left-liberal intellectual dynasty:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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