Fifty years after Shirley Chisholm ran for the Presidency, we find ourselves yet again questioning the durability of outmoded presumptions about race and gender. By Jelani Cobb
The Republican National Convention and the Iconography of Triumph
In Milwaukee, with a candidate who had just cheated death, the resentment rhetoric of Trump’s 2016 campaign gave way to an atmosphere of festive certainty. By Anthony Lane
Gillian Anderson’s Sex Education
She became famous playing buttoned-up Agent Scully. But in midlife her characters often have a strong erotic charge—and now she’s edited “Want,” a book of sexual fantasies. By Rebecca Mead
Country Life Magazine (July 23, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Talking Dogs’ – The secret language of the shepherd’s friends, Shooting on Lewis and fishing on the Test; Fired up – the foundry that made Trafalgar’s lions; Loving lapwings; Building with oak and summer in Paris….
Whistle while you work
It is mesmerising to watch one man and his dog moving a flock of sheep using a language all of their own. Katy Birchall admires the almost telepathic connection between sheepdog and handler
Who are you calling a peewit?
The pied plumage of the lapwing was once a common sight in our countryside and, as Vicky Liddell learns, moves are afoot to halt the beautiful bird’s decline
Heavy metal
The heat is on for Catriona Gray as she visits the UK’s oldest-surviving art foundry, now forging a successful future hidden away in the Hampshire countryside
The dogs that ask why
Patrick Galbraith is confounded by a case of mistaken canine identity when he embarks on a day of walked-up grouse shooting on the Isle of Lewis
The tale of the Croque Monsieur
Armed with an array of home-tied flies, David Profumo relishes pitting his wits against the wily trout of the South of England’s crystal-clear chalkstreams
From little acorns
We have been building with strong, sustainable and flexible oak since time immemorial — and the art continues to thrive, as Arabella Youens discovers
To Paris with love
The 1924 Olympics were the crowning glory of a golden age for culture in the French capital. Mary Miers looks back to an extraordinary, liberating time
Willie Hartley Russell’s favourite painting
The chairman of the Almshouse Association chooses a striking portrait of a remarkable man
Fitting like a glove
Jeremy Musson applauds the success of Woodford Hill Farm, a new country house perfect for its old Northamptonshire setting
The legacy
He is seldom given due credit, but there would be no modern Olympic Games without William Penny Brookes, finds Kate Green
As different as night and day
John Lewis-Stempel’s detour in Dorset is rewarded by an early-morning encounter with the enigmatic, elusive nightjar
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell is getting shirty with the best summer gents’ linens
West is best
Eleanor Doughty explores the top places for London commuters to buy out west of the capital
The odd couple
Caroline Donald hails the marriage of a 200-year-old villa with a contemporary garden in Kent
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson on cherries
Bay watch
The bay leaf wins the laurels as a symbol of strength, courage and wisdom, says Ian Morton
Our daily bread
Neil Buttery examines the rise of the Anglo-Saxon Lammas loaf
TRACKS – Travel Documentaries (July 21, 2024): Delve into the natural wonders of the French Alps with “Great Places Of The World.” Witness the nesting rituals of storks, explore protected deciduous forests, and encounter elusive lynxes and mountain goats against the backdrop of Europe’s stunning alpine landscapes.
From the bustling activity of springtime storks to the tranquil beauty of northern forests, immerse yourself in the diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife of this enchanting region.
Where Do Republicans and Democrats Stand After the R.N.C.?
Biden imperilled his candidacy at the debate because of his inability to speak coherently. At the convention, Trump was doing something similar, and couldn’t stop. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Will Hezbollah and Israel Go to War?
Months of fighting at the border threaten to ignite an all-out conflict that could devastate the region.
Should We Abolish Prisons?
Our carceral system is characterized by frequent brutality and ingrained indifference. Finding a better way requires that we freely imagine alternatives. By Adam Gopnik
The Drift Magazine (July 19, 2024): The latest issue features Maybe fortresses come to violence like an addiction. Maybe the water is just water. The tide abandons what it leaves. We have absolutely no way of controlling the cane toad. “I love anyone who hears my screams.” You ever cry with that knowledge? Do they kiss on the mouth? What will the bears say? I am not yet a trampoline. No doors exist and nobody’s home. Simply because they are eternally young, beautiful, and dead.
The image of Donald Trump, his face smeared with blood after a bullet grazed his ear, marked a watershed moment in the already high-stakes 2024 US presidential election campaign. Opening our special report on the Pennsylvania rally shooting, Washington bureau chief David Smith examines how it could fuel Trump’s base and stoke further division in American politics.
Five essential reads in this week’s edition
1 Spotlight | On paw patrol in Sumatra National Geographic explorer and photographer Danielle Khan Da Silva joins an all-female group of Indigenous rangers who protect a rare Indonesian rainforest ecosystem.
2 Spotlight | Evasive action The doctors who treat cancer share their expert advice on what simple things we can all do to lessen the risk of getting the disease with Sarah Phillips.
3 Feature | Too hot to handle As heatwaves become a common occurrence, outdoor workers are particularly vulnerable, explains Samira Shackle, as she documents the death from heat of one French labourer.
4 Opinion | Simon Tisdall on the Nato summit The 75-year-old alliance was created to counteract Moscow’s power and needs to keep its focus on containing Russian ambition.
Country Life Magazine (July 16, 2024): The latest issue features ‘500 Shades of Green’ – Why is it the eye’s favorite hue; Rex Whistler’s triumph and tragedy; Big hearts and funny faces – the bull terrier and Alan Titchmarsh’s favorite flower show…
Our green and pleasant land
Our eyes can detect more of its shades than any other colour and its many hues are bound up with everything from jealousy to British racing cars—it’s all gone green for Lucien de Guise
It’s a bullseye
‘Life is merrier when you live with a bull terrier’ owners tell Katy Birchall as she delves into the kindly and comic character beneath the muscular frame
Showing the way
Goodwill and gardening go hand in hand at the ‘beautifully formed’ Royal Windsor Flower Show—and Alan Titchmarsh wouldn’t miss it for the world
First to fall
Rex Whistler refused to leave fighting the Second World War to ‘young boys’, but his courage and leadership was to cost him his life, as Allan Mallinson reveals
Lyndon Farnham’s favourite painting
The Jersey chief minister picks a work that encapsulates the island’s spirit and determination
‘Most costly and church-wise’
In the second of two articles, John Goodall investigates the 17th-century expansion that provided Lincoln College, Oxford, with a quite outstanding chapel
The legacy
Music will ring around the Royal Albert Hall again this summer thanks to Henry Wood and his Proms, reveals Octavia Pollock
All The King’s Whales and all The Queen’s dolphins
With more species around our shores than anywhere else in northern Europe, Ben Lerwill keeps his eyes peeled for porpoises, whales and dolphins
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell shells out on fine jewellery that is sure to impress
A stitch in time
Debo Devonshire’s love of chic, chickens and Chatsworth in Derbyshire is celebrated in a new exhibition, discovers Kim Parker
Interiors
Giles Kime explores large-scale wallpaper capable of transport-ing you to a whole new world
Country Life International
Jersey earns royal approval
Antonia Windsor marks 150 years of La Corbière lighthouse
Paul Henderson spices up his life with Jersey’s East Asian cuisine
Nick Hammond brews his own island tea
Holly Kirkwood picks the best properties for sale
Over the hills and far away
Tiffany Daneff marvels at the spectacular views that have been restored at the Old Rectory at Preston Capes, Northamptonshire
Kitchen garden cook
Crunchy fennel is a summer highlight for Melanie Johnson
Time for some merriment
Michael Billington is royally entertained as Shakespeare receives a modern, mirth-filled twist in Stratford and London
HARPER’S MAGAZINE – July 15, 2024: The latest issue features ‘The New Satanic Panic’ – Exorcism in the Age of TikTok; Has Psychology ruined Poetry; America’s Last Granite Carvers; William T. Vollmann reports from Korea’s DMZ, Matthew Karp on the decline of the American left, Jonathan Lethem on museums, Hisham Matar on the dangers of not knowing, Christian Wiman on Seamus Heaney, and more.
The pastor is pacing back and forth, a cordless microphone in one hand, the other extended before him. He says, “This is the awakening the American church has been waiting on,” and keeps pacing. He has readied himself before taking the elevated stage, donning a paisley shirt, top button undone, and speaks now from the wood pulpit of his revival tent.
The Letters of Seamus Heaney, edited by Christopher Reid. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 848 pages. $45.
This buoyant anvil of a book has brought me to the edge of a nervous breakdown. Night after night I’m waking with Seamus Heaney sizzling through—not me, exactly, but the me I was thirty-four years ago when I first read him, in a one-windowed, mold-walled studio in Seattle, when night after night I woke with another current (is it another current?) sizzling through my circuits: ambition. Not ambition to succeed on the world’s terms (though that asserted its own maddening static) but ambition to find forms for the seethe of rage, remembrance, and wild vitality that seemed, unaccountably, like sound inside me, demanding language but prelinguistic, somehow. I felt imprisoned by these vague but stabbing haunt-songs that were, I sensed, my only means of freedom.
From the time of the Revolutionary War to the fires of the nineteen-seventies, the history of the borough has always been shaped by its in-between-ness.
Country Life Magazine (July 9, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Experts’ Experts – 185 heroes the top designers rely on; Top dogs – politics of the village show; Boar wars – what to do with wild pigs; Tea and cakes – the rise and rise of the sponge…
The experts’ experts
Giles Kime and Amelia Thorpe ask Britain’s leading lights in design to name the talented professionals who inspire and transform their own projects
The dog with the waggiest tail
Move over Crufts, the village pooch parade is the one they all want to win with local bragging rights hanging in the balance, as Madeleine Silver discovers
Rooting for the truth
Pilfering pest or beneficial ecosystem engineer? Vicky Liddell examines the often-controversial return of wild boar to Britain’s woodland
Oh, crumbs! Secrets of the sponge
How did the Victoria sponge rise to be fêted as the queen of all cakes? Flora Watkins indulges in the history of the nation’s favourite teatime treat
Philippa Thorp’s favourite painting
The interior designer chooses a powerful work that unlocks a whole range of emotions
The devil is in the detail
Minette Batters insists that the incoming Government must be held to account over the many lavish pre-election promises on food security and farming
Salvaging the vine
In the first of two articles, John Goodall charts the long, hard struggle to bring to fruition one Bishop of Lincoln’s dreams of establishing a college at Oxford
The legacy
Amie Elizabeth White brews up a tale of 18th-century success as she celebrates Thomas Twining’s role as a tea pioneer
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell earns her summer stripes with elegant blue-and-white pieces for home and away
Ancient and modern
George Plumptre is heartened to witness a clever modern renovation of Nash’s Picturesque vision at Sandridge Park, Devon
If you’re lookin’, you ain’t cookin’
Tom Parker Bowles harnesses the flame’s fickle power as he shares a chef’s secrets of the perfect barbecue technique
In the dock
John Wright grasps the nettle in a hands-on investigation into the powers of the dock leaf—and, he says, it is your turn next
Word on the street
Smart Duke Street in London’s St James’s is the epicentre of British art. Carla Passino meets the larger-than-life characters who put the area on the map
Go tell the congregation
Matthew Dennison can’t help but sing the praises of Isaac Watts, that most prolific of hymn writers born 350 years ago
Goodbye, James Anderson
James Fisher pays tribute to English cricket’s legendary fast bowler ahead of his farewell Test match against the West Indies
And much more‘
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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