Los Angeles Review Of Books – Winter 2024-2025
Category Archives: Previews
Country Life Magazine – December 18, 2024 Preview
Country Life Magazine (December 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Christmas Double Issue’…
A story of homeliness
The Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy considers the Christmas story told in familiar rituals
Earth stood hard as iron
Frost casts a garden’s structure into sharp relief. Tiffany Daneff enters a sparkling world
The Very Revd Jo Kelly-Moore’s favourite painting
The Dean of St Albans chooses a canvas full of uplifting light for dark times
The legacy
Kate Green pays tribute to Dame Ninette de Valois, the ‘godmother of ballet’
Where Britain’s first saint lies
In the first of two articles, John Goodall traces the saintly history of the ancient abbey church of St Albans, Hertfordshire
Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet
The feisty robin is the undisputed avian king of Christmas. Mark Cocker wonders why
It’s a most wonderful time of the year
From weaving wreaths to corralling choristers, the work is ramping up for country people, who talk to Kate Green and Paula Lester
Baby, it’s gold outside
Catriona Gray meets the artists capturing Nature’s beauty in gold
Silence is golden
Stop and listen to Nature’s voice, urges John Lewis-Stempel
Each year you bring to us delight
Hanging treasured decorations is all part of the magic. Matthew Dennison opens the bauble box
Look out! Look out! Jack Frost is about
Deborah Nicholls-Lee dares to unveil the mysterious figure
The Editor’s Christmas quiz
Take on our quizmaster — and, more importantly, your family and friends
Anyone for indoor cricket?
Melanie Cable-Alexander buckles up for riotous country-house-corridor games
No Risk, no reward
Harry Pearson takes over the world with the classic board game
Make ’em laugh
Jonathan Self chortles at British comedy
The Christmas Story: ‘Bring me flesh and bring me wine’
The spirit of Christmas works its magic on a curmudgeonly baronet in Kate Green’s tale
Interiors
Natural scents win for Arabella Youens
While shepherds watched their flocks
The sheep and its patient guardians have long delighted artists, finds Michael Prodger
Luxury
Knitting, diamonds and Giles Coren’s treats
It takes a village
Is the perfect rural habitation real, wonders John Lewis-Stempel
Don’t mince your words
Modern mince pies are but pale shadows of the past, believes Neil Buttery
You’re one hot roast potato
Who can resist a roastie? Not Emma Hughes, nor anyone else in their right mind
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson builds a gingerbread house
That’ll do, pig
Glazed and succulent, the Christmas ham is the king of the feast for Tom Parker Bowles
Lay, lady, lay
Give wine time to age, urges Harry Eyres
Crown Him with many crowns
John Lewis-Stempel gathers in the holly, once divine diadem, now a cow’s Christmas feast
The straw that broke the camel’s back
Labour’s family-farm tax will mean ruin for a beleaguered sector, says Minette Batters
‘Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional’
Sam Leith opens the well-worn covers of the childhood books we will always cherish
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee
From frogs to rat armies, the natural world has inspired countless ballets. Laura Parker straps on her pointe shoes for the bunny hop
Highlights, delights and lowlights
Michael Billington awards his accolades to the stars — and the scourges — of the stage
Spectres of the feast
Operas with food and wine may be rousing, but there are perils, warns Henrietta Bredin
Unputdownable: the page turners of 2024
Country Life reviewers select their top books
Literarature: The Paris Review – Winter 2024-2025
Fredric Jameson on the Art of Criticism: “Ideological critique has to end up being a critique of the self. You can’t recognize an ideology unless, in some sense, you see it in yourself.”
Hanif Kureishi on the Art of Fiction: “When I was in hospital in Rome, having the experience of being a paralyzed man nearly dead, my only excitement was in the thought that I could write some of this shit down.”
Gerald Murnane on the Art of Fiction: “A fatal question—what are people reading these days? Never mind what people are reading these days. What should I be writing about is the fundamental question.”
Prose by Dan Bevacqua, Caoilinn Hughes, Silas Jones, Alec Niedenthal, Adania Shibli, and Abdulah Sidran.
Poetry by Sargon Boulus, Egill Skallagrímsson, Rachel Mannheimer, Simone White, and Hua Xi.
Art by Ann Craven, Ala Ebtekar, and Josh Smith; cover by Seth Becker.
Reviews: Best Books On Foreign Affairs Of 2024
Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy
by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman
In a revelatory book, Farrell and Newman describe how the United States has turned its control over information networks into a hidden tool of economic domination—and warn of the risks of Washington’s weaponization of data power for ordinary people, as well as for the global financial system.read the review
To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power
by Sergey Radchenko
In a major reconsideration of Cold War history, Radchenko examines the Soviet Union’s competing ambitions for revolution, security, and legitimacy—and how Soviet leadership, blinded by its own hubris and aggression, set the stage for the downfall of the USSR. read the review
Freedom From Fear: An Incomplete History of Liberalism
by Alan S. Kahan
Kahan argues that what unifies liberals across the centuries, including those involved in building and defending liberal democracy today, are their efforts to build societies free from the fear of arbitrary power. He sculpts a masterful and beautifully written history of liberalism’s long intellectual journey. read the review
Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point
by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
In this sobering study, Levitsky and Ziblatt demonstrate how the United States’ enduring constitutional order—one forged in a pre-democratic age—increasingly thwarts the will of an expanding multicultural majority in favor of a shrinking rural white minority.read the review
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
by Anne Applebaum
Focused on the sophisticated and networked world of autocracy, dictatorship, and tyranny, Applebaum argues that what separates hardcore autocratic states, such as China and Russia, from softer illiberal and authoritarian regimes, such as those in Hungary, India, and Turkey, is the ruthlessness and reach of their dictatorial power and their deep hostility to the Western-led democratic world.read the review
Arts & Literature Preview: Kenyon Review – Fall 2024
The New York Times Magazine – Dec. 8, 2024
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (December 7 2024): The 12.8.24 Issue features William Langewiesche on the secret Pentagon war game how nuclear escalation spirals out of control; Daniel Bergner on a mysterious gap in psychosis rates; Alexis Okeowo on an endless war in Ethiopia; and more.
The Secret Pentagon War Game That Offers a Stark Warning for Our Times
The devastating outcome of the 1983 game reveals that nuclear escalation inevitably spirals out of control.
The Interview: Tilda Swinton Would Like a Word With Trump About His Mother
The Academy Award-winning actress discusses her lifelong quest for connection, humanity’s innate goodness and the point of being alive.
Ethiopia’s Agony: ‘I Have Never Seen This Kind of Cruelty in My Life’
A rare look inside a region still reckoning with the toll of war crimes, even as new conflicts roil the nation. By Alexis Okeowo
America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates
Black Americans experience schizophrenia and related disorders at twice the rate of white Americans. It’s a disparity that has parallels in other cultures. By Daniel Bergner
Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – Dec. 9, 2024
BARRON’S MAGAZINE (December 7, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Bull Case for Investing Abroad’…
International Roundtable: 4 Experts, 12 Stock Picks
Investing abroad has been a tough sell, but overseas markets offer growth—and value.
MicroStrategy Is Winning by Breaking Wall Street’s Rules. Avoid the Stock.
Investors effectively are paying nearly $240,000 for each of the company’s 402,100 Bitcoins, well above the market price.
What Happens if You Die Without a Will? You Could Leave Heirs—and Pets—With Even More Grief.
People can avoid messy family fights by preparing a will. It needn’t be a complicated document.
Inflation Isn’t Dead Yet. How to Protect Your Retirement Income.
Rising prices are here to stay. Use these investments to beat the inflation trap.Long read
Research Preview: Science Magazine-Dec. 6, 2024
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Programming tissue-sensing T cells that deliver therapies to the brain
‘Brutal’ math test raises the bar for AI
Model-stumping benchmark shows human experts remain on top—for now
Beneath Antarctica’s ice, a fiery future may await
Researchers probe volcanoes’ response to a changing world
War-torn Ukraine is breeding drug-resistant bacterial strains
Urgent action underway to bolster treatments and prevent dangerous microbes from spilling across borders
Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Dec. 6, 2024
Times Literary Supplement (December 4, 2024): The latest issue features ‘HIs Other Country’ – The James Baldwin revival continues in the 100th anniversary year of his birth. A trickle of biographies has become a flood, and the causes for which he stood, racial equality and gay rights, speak to the times.
Knowing his name – Celebrating the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth
Bring back the big fish
Record-label scouts chase ‘strange compositions’
No sacred cows
A video game challenges the history of Argentina
By Mia Levitin
The Economist Magazine – December 7, 2024 Preview
America’s gambling boom should be celebrated, not feared
The gambling frenzy is mostly about people being free to enjoy themselves
France steps into deep trouble
It has no government and no budget, and is politically gridlocked
Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea should resign, or be impeached
His coup attempt was foiled. But grave tests still remain for the country
Joe Biden abused a medieval power to pardon his son
The president’s reversal is understandable, hum
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