Times Literary Supplement (February 10, 2023) @TheTLS , features Mark Mazower on Elgin and the Parthenon; James Fenton on El Cid; @NortonTaylor on Pegasus; Claire Lowdon on Aleksandar Hemon; @michaelscaines on Titus Andronicus – and more.
Literary Review – February 2023 Issue:
Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution
Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning By Nigel Biggar
Spying on the Reich: The Cold War Against Hitler By R T Howard\
The New York Times Book Review – February 5, 2023:
His new novel is about a kingdom that is founded on pluralism but fails to live up to its ideals.
In his new book, “The Struggle for a Decent Politics,” the political philosopher Michael Walzer grapples with a definition.
“Essex Dogs,” the first novel in a projected trilogy by the historian Dan Jones, imagines a hard-bitten band of mercenaries hired to invade France on behalf of their English king.
The New York Review of Books February 23, 2023 issue:
In Edward Hopper’s paintings of New York, human figures often seem outgrowths of their architectural surroundings.
Edward Hopper’s New York an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, October 19, 2022–March 5, 2023
Lula’s election comes as a relief to many Brazilians, but in this historically violent and unequal country, a void in the democratic field endures.
The intensity of experience that Katherine Mansfield sought in her short life is matched by the formal obliqueness she discovered in her stories.
All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything by Claire Harman
This week’s @TheTLS , featuring Ferdinand Mount on fair play; @ScurrRuth on Janet Malcolm; @sophieolive on Mina Loy; @mjohnharrison on László Krasznahorkai; @pratinavanil on Nehru; @jamesamarcus on Melville and Mumford; @eliza_dearnley on pagan goddesses – and more.
The New York Times Book Review – January 29, 2023:
“Master Slave Husband Wife,” by Ilyon Woo, relates the daring escape from bondage in Georgia to freedom in the North by an enslaved couple disguised as a wealthy planter and his property.
In “The Wandering Mind,” the historian Jamie Kreiner shows that the struggle to focus is not just a digital-age blight but afflicted even those who spent their lives in seclusion and prayer.
In Deepti Kapoor’s cinematic novel, a young man from the provinces falls in with a powerful crime syndicate.
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
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.
Boomers Daily 