Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Books: The Top Ten Best Reviews – June 2023

Wall Street Journal Books & Art (June 28, 2023) – A country music outsider’s journey, the uprising that tested a young America, the true story of a psychotherapy cult and more standouts from the month in books.

Animal Spirits: The American Pursuit of Vitality From Camp Meeting to Wall Street

By Jackson Lears 

Shaw’s life force, Freud’s libido, Bergson’s ‘élan vital’—all are expressions of a spark that eludes the control of civilized modernity. Review by Jeremy McCarter.

“All history is the history of longing,” Jackson Lears has written.

Read the review


Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism

By Philip J. Stern 

The history of the British empire is really the history of ‘venture colonialism,’ developed by bold entrepreneurs, savvy investors—and some shady characters too. Review by Tunku Varadarajan.

Read the review


Hands of Time: A Watchmaker’s History

By Rebecca Struthers 

The craft requires ingenious engineering at a miniature scale and an appreciation for timeless beauty. Review by Michael O’Donnell.

Read the review



Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces

By Patrick Mackie 

The continuing appeal of Mozart’s music may lie in the contradictory nature of the composer, balancing elegance with challenging originality. Review by Lloyd Schwartz.

Read the review


Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature

By Sarah Hart

Are great writers and brilliant mathematicians really so far apart? Within the structures of literary works of all kinds, numbers are hiding. Review by Timothy Farrington.

Read the review


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Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – June 30, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (June 30, 2023): Evelyn Waugh’s failed marriage and spiritual crisis; The police on trial; Grotesque, unbelievable murder; Lorrie Moore’s road trip; Levity in death and more….

London Design Biennale: ‘Future Is Rural’ In Japan

Dezeen Films (June 28, 2023) – Photographer Edmund Sumner has created a film featuring eight projects that emphasis the   Future is Rural theme of the Japan Pavilion at the London Design Biennale, which was curated by Yuki Sumner. Yuki Sumner aimed to highlight projects by artists, designers and activists tackling issues such as depopulation and an ageing society in rural Japan, in the film.

Ashmolean Museum Views: The ‘Tang Dynasty Camel’

Ashmolean Museum (June 26, 2023): This short film by Carina Hanslik shares an insight into the incredible story behind an ancient ceramic camel.

The object that inspired this animation, a ceramic camel dating back to the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907), helps us to tell the story of Paul Jacobsthal, a Jewish professor of Archaeology at the University of Marburg in the 1930s, who was forced to leave Germany.

CAMEL TOMB FIGURE

A spiritual object intended to protect the dead from evil 

Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford | EA2012.189

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Listen to the story of Jewish professor Paul Jacobsthal, and how he escaped the Nazis with his Tang Dynasty camel.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 3, 2023

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The New Yorker – July 3, 2023 issue: For Independence Day, the artist Kadir Nelson chose to portray a young woman who, though she may be standing in the midst of the festivities, is anchored in her own private world.

The Divine Comedy of Roman Emperors’ Last Words

A statue of a man atop a walking eagle.

In the end, godlike aspirations often met with all too human final moments.

By Mary Beard

One of the funniest works of Roman literature to survive—and the only one that has ever made me laugh out loud—is a skit, written by the philosopher Seneca, about the Emperor Claudius’ adventures on his way to Mt. Olympus after his death. Titled “Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii” (“The ‘Pumpkinification’ of the Deified Claudius”), it recounts how the Roman Senate declared that the dead Emperor was now a god, complete with his own temple, priests, and official rites of worship. The deification of emperors was fairly standard practice at the time, and the spoof claimed to lift the lid on what really happened during the process.

How Plastics Are Poisoning Us

An outline of a woman made out of plastic beads and trash

They both release and attract toxic chemicals, and appear everywhere from human placentas to chasms thirty-six thousand feet beneath the sea. Will we ever be rid of them?

By Elizabeth Kolbert

The New York Times Book Review — June 25, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW – JUNE 25, 2023: The Reading Crisis by @aoscott; ‘Little Monsters’ by @adriennebrodeur; ‘The Art Thief’ by @MikeFinkel and more…

Everyone Likes Reading. Why Are We So Afraid of It?

This image features a folded pair of black frame glasses. The left lens is tinted yellow. The right lens is clear but fractured, as if the glass has been hit by something hard.

Book bans, chatbots, pedagogical warfare: What it means to read has become a minefield.

By A.O. Scott

Everyone loves reading. In principle, anyway. Nobody is against it, right? Surely, in the midst of our many quarrels, we can agree that people should learn to read, should learn to enjoy it and should do a lot of it. But bubbling underneath this bland, upbeat consensus is a simmer of individual anxiety and collective panic. We are in the throes of a reading crisis.

Family Politics as a Predictor of Mayhem on a Bigger Scale

In her new novel, “Little Monsters,” Adrienne Brodeur takes readers on a stressful march toward a patriarch’s 70th birthday party.

By MARY POLS

Adrienne Brodeur’s “Little Monsters” is cleverly calculated to push all the buttons for a wide swath of women. Like her 2019 memoir “Wild Game,” which examined the role Brodeur played in her mother’s long affair with a family friend, “Little Monsters” is a tale of dysfunction and buried secrets, set in and around moneyed Cape Cod.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Art Newspaper (June 22, 2023): The Art Newspaper’s editor, Alison Cole, and London correspondent, Martin Bailey, join our host Ben Luke to review the National Portrait Gallery after its £41m revamp.

We talk to Nancy Ireson at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia about the exhibition William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision. Edmondson was the first African American artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1930s, but has rarely been shown in museums on the US East Coast since.

And this episode’s Work of the Week marks the 75th anniversary of the arrival in the UK of the Empire Windrush, a boat carrying passengers from the Caribbean. Zinzi Minott, the choreographer and artist, has made a film called Fi Dem about the Windrush on this anniversary every year since 2017. She tells us about the latest iteration, which is at the heart of a new exhibition at Queercircle in London.

The National Portrait Gallery is open now. Yevonde: Life and Colour, until 15 October.

William Edmondson: A Monumental Vision, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, 25 June-10 September.

Zinzi Minott’s Fi Dem VI is part of her exhibition Many Mikl Mek Ah Mukl, Queercircle, London, until 27 August.

Profiles: Native American Pottery Artist Thomas Tenorio Of Santa Fe, NM

Travel + Leisure (June 21, 2023): Unearth the history and beauty of Santa Fe, New Mexico’s art scene with local artist Thomas Tenorio.

Video timeline: 0:00 Intro 0:23 Andrea Fisher Fine Pottery 1:16 Santa Fe’s Artists 1:33 Thomas Tenorio’s Traditional Pottery 4:22 Outro

In this video, learn about Thomas’s journey as a traditional Native American potter and how art has become a way of life for him. Also, see Andrea Fisher’s traditional pottery shop and learn more about Santa Fe’s vibrant art scene. Watch the video to learn more about the artists and how the art of the area is closely tied to the local indigenous communities.

#TravelandLeisure #Travel #SantaFe #Art #Pottery #TraditionalArt

Culture: Country Life Magazine – June 21, 2023

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Country Life Magazine – June 21, 2023 issue:

From field to dinner-party fork

Feeding friends with food grown in your own garden is a delight, finds Natasha Goodfellow.

Why treasure is a universal word

London’s new Treasure House Fair deserves to be a triumph, believes Huon Mallalieu.

Skye Gyngell’s favourite painting

The culinary director chooses a graphic work full of energy.

Ode to June

Jamie Blackett swelters on the farm, where greenfinches fly and the meadow shimmers.

Native breeds

Kate Green falls for the teddy-bear Greyface Dartmoor sheep.

Life, the universe and everything

Does cave art hold the answer, asks Robin Hanbury-Tenison.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – June 23, 2023

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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