Times Literary Supplement (January 27, 2023) @TheTLS , featuring @TimParksauthor on Italo Calvino; @15thcgossipgirl on the Wife of Bath; @NshShulman on Prince Harry; Fredrik Logevall on Jefferson the writer; @lejhouston on queer poetry; @RSmythFreelance on Ronald Blythe – and more.
‘Island nations tend to be complacent about border problems, seeing them as things that happen to someone else. But then you have Brexit and Northern Ireland, and it suddenly becomes clear that no one is safe.
Russia is fighting Ukraine about borders. This means that, as well as dodging bombs and getting used to living in the dark, residents of the border zone have to decide if they are “really” Russian or “really” Ukrainian.
Some will no doubt be keeping the non-chosen identity in a trunk in the attic, to be retrieved in case of future need. But the logic of war is stern: those who choose to be Ukrainians are also opting to hate Russians as the enemy invader, while those in Ukraine who choose to be Russians are contemplating the possibility of having to move east.
Wherever the border ultimately settles, there will be fortifications and troops stationed on either side and a series of tightly controlled crossing points. Villages and families will be divided and the normal commerce of economic and social life disrupted. Schools will teach in the language of the victor. Roads that used to lead somewhere will end abruptly.’
The Curtain and the Wall: A Modern Journey along Europe’s Cold War Border by Timothy Phillips
On the Edge: Life along the Russia-China Border by Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey
Eric Adams’s friends and allies have puzzled over his relationship with Lamor Whitehead, a fraudster Brooklyn church leader.
Following a prison term, a fraught election, and a near-coup, the third-time President takes charge of a fractured country.
They’re floundering at school and in the workplace. Some conservatives blame a crisis of masculinity, but the problems—and their solutions—are far more complex.
He talks with correspondent Lilia Luciano about his traveling exhibition, “Raven and the Box of Daylight” (now at the Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.), which tells a Native American folktale about the origins of the world entirely through glass.
The story Raven and the Box of Daylight, which tells how Raven transformed the world and brought light to the people by releasing the stars, moon, and sun, holds great significance to the Tlingit people of the North Pacific Coast. A new body of work by artist Preston Singletary immerses readers in Tlingit traditions by telling this story through his monumental glass works and installations. Primarily known for his celebration of Tlingit art and design, Singletary explores new ways of working with glass inspired by Tlingit design principles. This book includes texts that place Singletary’s work within the histories of both glass art and Native arts traditions—especially the art of spoken-word storytelling. Also included are a biography and an interview with the artist. Co-authored by Miranda Belarde-Lewis and John Drury.
 |
The New York Times Book Review – January 22, 2023:
As catastrophe approaches, Stephen Markley’s “The Deluge” considers its many facets.
From the Arctic to the Amazon, Cheuk Kwan traces a diaspora through Chinese restaurants owned and operated by immigrant families.
Michael Crummey, an award-winning author whose poetry and prose explore the region and its capital, St. John’s, shares book recommendations, local vocabulary and where to find a good pint.
January 20, 2023: Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in Tokyo are the subject of a legal claim in the US relating to Nazi loot.
The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent and resident Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey tells us why Sunflowers (1888-89) is at the centre of the dispute, 35 years after it was sold for a record price at auction, and why the heirs of the German Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who owned it until the 1930s, now value it at a staggering $250m.
Our editor-at-large Georgina Adam has just returned from Singapore, where the first Art SG art fair took place last week. How successful was this new event in the art market calendar, and what does it tell us about Singapore’s ambitions to become an art hub?
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Portraits in a Chinese Studio, a photographic work by the artist Grace Lau. In the project, which marks Chinese New Year, Lau is subverting the tradition of colonial 19th-century portrait studios in a shopping centre in Southampton on the south coast of the UK.Grace Lau: Portraits in a Chinese Studio, Marlands Shopping Centre, Southampton, UK, 21 January-12 February
After the Russian Revolution, Jews had to navigate a new identity: aspiring muscular worker and New Soviet Man.
How the Soviet Jew Was Made by Sasha Senderovich
For Matisse art was a perpetual emergency, a matter of testing boundaries, breaking through.
Matisse: The Red Studio – an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, May 1–September 10, 2022; and SMK–National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, October 13, 2022–February 26, 2023
Matisse in the 1930s – an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, October 20, 2022–January 29, 2023; the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, March 1–May 29, 2023; and the Musée Matisse Nice, June 23–September 24, 2023
Dionne Brand’s poetry has the weight and sonority of prophetic utterance without a hint of melodrama.
Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems by Dionne Brand
What can opera elicit from The Hours that the page and the screen cannot?
The Hours – an opera by Kevin Puts, with a libretto by Greg Pierce, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, November 22–December 15, 2022
Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (January 20, 2023) features an extract from Lawfare by Geoffrey Robertson KC (published tomorrow by TLS Books); @NoreenMasud and Jade French on H. D.; Michael Hofmann on Shirley Hazzard; Gwendoline Riley on Michael Bracewell; Jenny Uglow on Anthony Gross – and more.
Standard construction can be slow, costly, and inefficient. Machines might do it better.
Heirs to an iconic fortune sought out a wealth manager who would assuage their progressive consciences. Now their dispute is exposing dynastic secrets.
Literature departments seem to provide a haven for studying books, but they may have painted themselves into a corner.
Boomers Daily 