Times Literary Supplement (June 23, 2023): Twenty-two TLS writers’ choices for best Summer 2023 Books, Anna Della Subin on Mary Magdalene; Kojo Koram on global capitalism; Zachary Leader on Joyce and Léon and illustrating Victorian classics
Working on Capital in the British Museum, plagued by creditors and carbuncles, Karl Marx complained not only that nobody had ever written so much about money and had so little of it, but that ‘this economic crap’ was keeping him from writing his big book on Balzac. His work is studded with allusions to Homer, Sophocles, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe and scores of other authors, though he was less enthralled by ‘Elizabeth’s arse-kissing poet’ Edmund Spenser, an advocate of state terror in Ireland.
Most of us would find it horrible to be told that we aren’t worth engaging with, that our views are socially unacceptable or merely a function of demography. But that it is painful to be on the receiving end of such remarks doesn’t mean that one’s own rights to ‘free speech’ are thereby imperilled; it might simply be a reminder that speech can wound.
The New Yorker – June 19, 2023 issue: Edward Steed’s “A Loveliness of Ladybugs” – In his cover for the June 26, 2023, issue, Ed Steed heralds summer, depicting some colorful Coccinellidae—the scientific term for the family of small beetles colloquially known as the ladybug, a swarm of which is collectively called a loveliness. I talked to the artist about the joy of painting, an affection for the little things, and the luck of the ladybugs.
Killingly by Katharine Beutner In 1897 Bertha Mellish, a student at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, disappeared. She was never found. Katharine Beutner uses this real-life mystery as the foundation for her second novel, Killingly (Corvus £14.99). Her focus is on those who were left behind, making what sense they can of Bertha’s exit from their lives. Agnes, her closest friend on campus, harbours knowledge she has vowed not to reveal; Florence, Bertha’s much older sister, is also keeping secrets from the past that have shaped her life; Henry Hammond, an arrogant medical man who believes he was destined to marry Bertha, uncovers truths for which he is unprepared. Beutner creates an impressive, multistranded story of pain, loss, and women’s struggle to escape the restrictions that are imposed on them.
Radical Love by Neil Blackmore Neil Blackmore’s Radical Love (Hutchinson £16.99) also takes a historical event — the Vere Street Coterie of 1810, which resulted in the hanging and pillorying of gay men — as the basis for its story. The narrator, John Church, is a minister who believes that love of all kinds should be religion’s motivating force. He takes this message to a molly house in Vere Street, where he offers same-sex marriages to the drag queens and rent boys who gather there. At the same time, he is driven by his own passion for Ned, a young former slave. Both a celebration of the erotic lives of long-dead gay Londoners and a lament for past persecutions, Radical Love is a powerful story of desire flourishing amid danger.
The Fascination by Essie Fox The Fascination (Orenda £16.99) is the fifth novel by Essie Fox, in which she once again makes skilful use of the tropes of Victorian gothic fiction. Keziah Lovell, 15, is an unwilling accomplice in her father’s schemes to sell his quack elixir to gullible punters. She is assisted by her twin sister, Tilly, a petite beauty who stopped growing at the age of five. Then their father sells them to an enigmatic Italian man known only as “Captain”. Surrounded by the “freaks” of his tribe, they face unexpected threats in a story of society’s outsiders seeking acceptance and redemption.
Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch There has been no shortage recently of feminist retellings of Greek myths. New versions of the Arthurian stories have been less common, but Sophie Keetch’s Morgan Is My Name (Magpie £16.99) is the first volume of a promised trilogy that has Morgan Le Fay as its narrator. Usually cast as the villain in the Arthurian tradition, here she is a fiery, intelligent woman who refuses to play the roles expected of her and determines to take control of her life. Turning the legends on their heads, Keetch finds new potential in them.
Flatlands by Sue Hubbard Taking its inspiration from Paul Gallico’s novella The Snow Goose, Sue Hubbard’s Flatlands (Pushkin £16.99) explores the wartime relationship that develops between Freda, a 12-year-old evacuee from the East End of London, and Philip Rhayader, a troubled conscientious objector, who are both exiled to the East Anglian fenlands. Precise in its historical detail and admirable in its evocation of the large skies and isolation of its setting, this is a moving study of an unlikely friendship and the healing power of the natural world.
Sotheby’s (June 16, 2023) – Morning Crescent and J.Y.M. Seated II are two seminal paintings by Frank Auerbach that represent the artist’s celebrated investigation into the genres of portraiture and the cityscape.
Executed eighteen years apart, both works exemplify Auerbach’s expressive use and colour and a faultless display of decisive and heavily impasto brushwork. Mornington Crescent is an incredibly rare and large-scale example from Auerbach’s 1960s output, and belongs to his ambitious and highly acclaimed body of landscapes.
This work ranks among the largest paintings in Auerbach’s catalogue raisonné and possesses a chromatic register that is unsurpassed. J.Y.M. Seated II is an important portrait of one of Frank Auerbach’s most celebrated sitters, Juliet Yardley Mills.
Frank Helmut Auerbach is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.
Stephen King reviews S.A. Cosby’s latest novel, “All the Sinners Bleed.”
Titus Crown is an ex-F.B.I. agent who gets a sheriff’s job, almost by accident, in a rural Virginia community. He’s Black. Mr. Spearman teaches geography and wears a coat of many countries on Earth Day. He’s white. Given the name of the town and county where these two live — Charon — one can expect bad things to happen, and they certainly do. As in S.A. Cosby’s previous two novels, “Blacktop Wasteland” and “Razorblade Tears,” the body count is high and the action pretty much nonstop.
In Melissa Sevigny’s “Brave the Wild River,” we meet the two scientists who explored unknown terrain — and broke barriers.
Let’s start this story on a sun-blistered evening in August 1938. A small band of adventurers had just concluded a 43-day journey from Utah to Nevada — although perhaps “journey” is too tame a description for a trip that had required weeks of small wooden boats tumbling down more than 600 miles of rock-strewn rivers. The goal was twofold. First, to simply survive. And then, to chart the plants building homes along the serrated walls of the Grand Canyon.
The Art Newspaper (June 16, 2023): As her new series for the BBC, Africa Rising, takes Afua Hirsch to Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa, we talk to her about the artists and art scenes she encountered and what she took away from her experiences.
The Liverpool Biennial’s latest edition opened last weekend and has a South African curator, Khanyisile Mbongwa, and an IsiZulu title, uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things. The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent, Louisa Buck, visited the biennial and reviews it for us. And it is Art Basel this week, in its original Swiss location, so this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the most notable works for sale at the fair.
Valentine was painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1984 and given to his then girlfriend, Paige Powell, on Valentine’s Day. Jeffrey Deitch, who is selling the work at Art Basel, tells us its story.
Africa Rising: Morocco is on the BBC iPlayer now. The Nigeria episode is on BBC Two on 20 June at 9pm for UK viewers and on BBC iPlayer, and South Africa is broadcast on BBC Two at 27 June at 9pm. For listeners outside the UK, check your local listings.
The Courtauld Institute of Art (June 14, 2023) – The Courtauld Gallery is home to one of the world’s greatest art collections, located in the magnificent historical setting of Somerset House in Central London.
Join actor and friend of The Courtauld Gallery, Bill Nighy, as he returns to the Gallery following its three year refurbishment, and discover our world-renowned collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces.
Highlights on display include the world-famous A Bar at the Folies Bergère by Édouard Manet, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh, the most significant collection of works by Paul Cézanne in the UK and works by Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Seurat and more.
Times Literary Supplement (June 16, 2023): E.M. Forester’s last romance; Freudian foreign policy; Richard Ford runs out of gas; What it is to be human and Wars of succession…
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