Times Literary Supplement (January 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Have a good trip’ – On the uses of psychedelic drugs; Hisham Matar’s novel of London exile; A West Bank tragedy; Puzzled by crosswords; French Band Aid, and more…
Country Life Magazine – January 9, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Walk This Way’ – England’s secret sunken roads; Return of the curly-coated retriever; Tom Parker Bowles on the comfort of pie; Britain’s most poisonous plants, and more…
The intelligent, powerful curly-coated retriever was favoured by the Victorians and is still winning plaudits as a working breed, discovers Katy Birchall
Ben Lerwill follows in the foot-steps of our ancestors to explore the history of holloways, those sunken and often secret routes criss-crossing the countryside
From hemlock and henbane to giant hogweed, Britain is home to a host of poisonous plants. John Wright reveals how to spot the dangerous and the deadly
Tom Parker Bowles earns his crust with an ode to the enduring appeal of this humble, yet oh so heavenly savoury creation
The broadcaster chooses a poignant work that speaks of absolute parental devotion
Fiona Reynolds explores the ancient Wiltshire Downs, with her sights set firmly on the far-off landmark of Cherhill Monument
The landmark 1980s restoration of London’s Liverpool Street Station is under threat from new proposals, argues Ptolemy Dean
In the first of two articles, John Goodall investigates the early history of Madresfield Court, Worcestershire, which has been in the same family for 900 years
Butter is making a comeback in a welcome celebration of our dairy heritage—Jenny Linford meets the artisan makers who are helping to spread the word
Tackle the snow in style this winter with Hetty Lintell’s pick of the best skiing accessories
The gardens at Villa Durazzo-Pallacini in Italy are Heaven on Earth for Charles Quest-Ritson
Lucien de Guise reveals how you can add a true touch of Ottoman opulence to your home
Amelia Thorpe selects the hottest new stoves, fires and range cookers, and Giles Kime examines the growing range of options fuelled by bioethanol
Deborah Nicholls-Lee looks at how hemp can help in the battle against climate change
By Carrie Cogan
I rode west with a childhood friend who was driving to a job in California. We passed through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and still there was no sign of the Commander. My friend placed a bag of chocolate-covered espresso beans on the console between us, jumble of rich dark gems, glittering like they were wet. I crunched them in my teeth without thinking. Sometimes I drove and let her sleep. When clouds clotted the sun her hair still glowed, some mix of orange and yellow and pink. Toast, or the honey for it, or the cinnamon.
After we spent a day and a night in a certain desert town, I told my friend to go on without me. I’d stay. The town was bordered by empty hills and endless sky: room to disappear. I found an unopened pack of Juicy Fruit gum on the sidewalk, which I took for a sign.
In the past few years, chronic absenteeism has nearly doubled. The fight to get students back in classrooms has only just begun.
Absenteeism underlies much of what has beset young people, including falling school achievement, deteriorating mental health, and elevated youth violence.
From opposite directions, the revolutionary intellectual and the creator of James Bond saw violence as essential—psychologically and strategically—to solving the crisis of colonialism.
More than fifty years later, Zohra Drif could still picture the Milk Bar in Algiers on September 30, 1956. It was white and shining, she recalled, awash in laughter, young voices, “summer colors, the smell of pastries, and even the distant twittering of birds.” Drif, a well-coiffed law student in a stylish lavender dress, ordered a peach-Melba ice cream and wedged her beach bag against the counter. She paid, tipped, and left without her bag. The bomb inside it exploded soon afterward.
Video timeline: (00:00) Coming on stage (00:27) 1. Lebhaft (02:03) 2. Innig (03:36) 3. Etwas hahnbüchen (05:10) 4. Ungeduldig (06:30) 5. Einfach (08:21) 6. Sehr rasch und in sich hinein (10:05) 7. Nicht schnell mit äußerst starker Empfindung (14:07) 8. Frisch (15:14) 9. No tempo indication (16:46) 10. Balladenmäßig sehr rasch (18:15) 11. Einfach (19:51) 12. Mit Humor (20:36) 13. Wild und lustig (23:44) 14. Zart und singend (25:50) 15. Frisch (27:58) 16. Mit gutem Humor (29:22) 17. Wie aus der Ferne (32:56) 18. Nicht schnell
The Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, are a two-part piano cycle by Robert Schumann, each consisting of nine character pieces. Schumann wrote 19 pieces, the last of which remains incomplete. The work was composed in the two months following his engagement to Clara Wieck on August 14, 1837. In the first piece, he quotes a motif from the Mazurka No. 5 from her Soirées musicales Op. 6 in the Motto of C. W. He speaks to her of wedding thoughts, which he has incorporated into the pieces. To his friend Carl Montag, however, he spoke of “death dances, St. Vitus’ dances, dances of graces and goblins”.
Schumann’s pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius also play an important role here. The two characters symbolize his dual role in the fictitious Davidsbund, which also gives this cycle its name. Florestan is the “roaring, exuberant stormtrooper”. Eusebius represents the opposite pole as “the gentle youth who always remains modestly in the background”. In the first edition, the plays are either titled “Florestan and Eusebius” or just one of the two names.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (January 5): The latest issue features ‘Read This And Learn’ – For decades, Juan Rulfo’s novel, “Pedro Páramo,” has cast an uncanny spell on writers. A new translation may bring it broader appeal.
For decades, Juan Rulfo’s novel, “Pedro Páramo,” has cast an uncanny spell on writers. A new translation may bring it broader appeal.
By Valeria Luiselli
Readers of Latin American literature may have heard one of the many versions of this story:
It is 1961 and Gabriel García Márquez has just arrived in Mexico City, penniless but full of literary ambition, trying desperately to work on a new novel. One day, he is sitting in the legendary Café La Habana, where Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were said to have plotted the Cuban Revolution. Julio Cortázar walks in, carrying a copy of Juan Rulfo’s novel “Pedro Páramo.” With a swift gesture, as if he’s dealing cards, Cortázar throws the book on García Márquez’s table. “Tenga, pa que aprenda,” he says. “Read this and learn.”
These two titans of 20th-century literature and music formed a profound, yearslong relationship across generations and backgrounds.
Early in 1935, a blizzard blew through New York City. The storm was so fierce, it virtually emptied Central Park. But Willa Cather spent her morning there, sledding with the violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin and his sisters.
Video timeline: 0:00 On preferred subjects for writing 3:20 On Karen Blixen /Isak Dinesen 4:24 On families 6:54 On the mother figure 9:00 On the novel ‘Babysitter’ 17:27 On the novel ‘Night. Sleep. Death. And the Stars’ 22:48 How traveling resembles writing 28:47 On Donald Trump
“What is so exciting about the novel is that it mimics life and that you end up doing something you never thought you would do,” says Joyce Carol Oates, one of America’s greatest living novelists, when looking back on a life of writing.
It might be a violent event or something politically relevant, or it could be a racist experience that sets off a novel. In her storytelling, Oates finds it interesting to focus on girls at the beginning of puberty: “There’s a kind of wonderful neutrality of childhood that gets conditioned out when girls get to be 12 – 14 years old. And then, from that point on, when they’re so shaped by what we call the male gaze and the expectations of others that they grow into being someone who is this female image.”
But today, the family is very different and there are all kinds of families: “There are families of same-sex couples who got married and they may adopt a child or they may have a child of their own, but then there may be families that are like communes where people are living, sharing a house, but they are a family and they may have dogs and cats who know who they are. […] The so-called nuclear family – which is just a father, mother, and children – still exists, of course, but it’s not the only example of any longer, which is wonderful. It all begins with the emancipation of women”, Joyce Carol Oates concludes.
Oates feels attracted to writing because writing is storytelling and “what’s interesting about storytelling is that you have to have revelations. That you start off with a situation, and a little bit of a mystery evolves, and then you have to follow the tendrils and the roots of that mystery, like an investigator. And then there has to be a revelation.” This means that Oates focuses a lot in her writing on the pacing and the suspense and the movement, like “how long is a paragraph, how short is the dialogue, and how much dialogue is there in proportion to the exposition, and the craftsman side of writing is actually where many people write.“
The Burlington Magazine – January 3, 2024: The new issue features ‘The Golden Age of Avignon’ – Avignon as ‘New Rome’; Rubens and women; Tiepolo in New York; Gertrude Stein and Picasso, and more….
A vivid photograph of a lotus pond ushers visitors into this ambitious exhibition on the arts and culture of Jiangnan. Lying to the south of the Yangtze – its name literally means ‘south of the river’ – this part of China includes such major cities as Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Curated by Clarissa von Spee, Chair of Asian Art and the James and Donna Reid Curator of Chinese Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), this is the first exhibition outside China to present an encyclopaedic view of the cultural history of this historically affluent region.
Ever since the Walpole Society was founded in London in 1911 ‘with the object of promoting the study of the history of British art’, The Burlington Magazine has taken a close interest in an organisation with aims and principles so close to our own: this is the sixth Editorial we have devoted to the subject. The first, written by the art historian August F. Jaccaci, who edited the Magazine’s ‘Art in America’ section, appeared in 1913 on the occasion of the publication of the first of the annual volumes that are the society’s raison d’être.
Times Literary Supplement (January 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Lady Vanishes’ – Muireann Maguire on a revival of classic crime fiction; What next for Julian Assange; David Hockney’s drawings; Dreaming up 007; The science of belonging and more…
Country Life Magazine – January 2, 2024: The latest issue features ‘The Very Best Of Britain’; Marylands, a Surrey country house with a Spanish influence; artist Anne Wright’s miniature Daffodils and snowdrops at her small nursery in North Yorkshire; and how January weather can set the tone for the year to come…
Geoffrey Chaucer created his Canterbury pilgrims more than 600 years ago, yet his band of travellers speaks across the ages, finds Matthew Dennison
Carla Passino bangs the drum for the British Isles with 50 things to make the nation proud, from code-cracking to clever dogs — and everything in between
Mary Keen is mesmerised by the array of rare and highly collectable snowdrops that artist Anne Wright is breeding at her small nursery in North Yorkshire
The chief executive of the Royal Countryside Fund chooses a work that sparks memories of his childhood in rural Norfolk
Carla Carlisle enters the new year with a determination to remain positive, fortified by the sentiments of W. H. Auden
The glamour and glitz of 1920s stage and screen is rekindled as Clive Aslet puts the spotlight on Marylands, a Surrey country house with a Spanish influence
In the first of a new series on weather lore, Lia Leendertz reveals how January can set the tone for the year to come
The bathroom of a Somerset house is restored with a nod to its historic roots, finds Arabella Youens, and Amelia Thorpe shares ideas for creating your own luxury bathing sanctuary
Start the year with an exhibition, says Charlotte Mullins, while Carla Passino assesses architect Richard Rogers’s contribution to the London skyline and Gilly Hopper looks ahead to the year’s big events in the capital
Melanie Johnson on sweet and nutty Jerusalem artichokes
Mary Lussiana stays at a land-mark luxury hotel in Marrakech while Luke Abrahams explores Athens in the snow and James Fisher dons his skis and discovers the Dolomites
Carla Passino investigates the centuries-long British passion for collecting antiquities and finds that all roads lead to Rome
Boomers Daily 