Tag Archives: Arts & Literature

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Books: Literary Review Magazine – March 2024

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Literary Review – March 1, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Gaughin’s Midlife Crisis’; Geology vs Genesis; Japan’s War Trials; Saddam’s Blunderers and Barbara Comyns in Full…

Comedian Who Got Serious

“The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky” By Simon Shuster

As someone who has to consume quite a lot of Russian media, I can tell you that if there is one common denominator, it’s that whether we’re talking about a shouty TV news programme (less Newsnight, more a kind of geopolitical Jeremy Kyle Show), a stodgy government newspaper of record or a racy tabloid, no one has a good word for Volodymyr Zelensky. 

The Agony and the Ecstasy

Kubrick: An Odyssey By Robert P Kolker

There are, I have long suspected, two types of cinephiles: those who think Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is a masterpiece and those who think it’s a relentless bore. Early in their new biography of the film director, Kubrick: An Odyssey, Robert P Kolker and Nathan Abrams make clear which camp they belong to, describing the scene in which the astronaut Frank Poole jogs around (and around and around and around) the spaceship Discovery as ‘one of the most lyrical passages in film history’. 

Arts & Literature, Books, Newspapers, Previews, Reviews

The New York Times Book Review – March 3, 2024

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (March 1, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Yakety-Yak’ – In “Language City”, Ross Perlin chronicles some of the precious traditions hanging on in New York, the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolis…

Kate DiCamillo Says ‘Paying Attention Is a Way to Love the World’

Credit…Rebecca Clarke

The feisty title character of her new book, “Ferris,” has a sharp eye for detail, and so, its author hopes, does she. Meanwhile, she is on an Alice McDermott reading jag.

How to Speak New York

In “Language City,” the linguist Ross Perlin chronicles some of the precious traditions hanging on in the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolis.

Art, Arts & Literature, Engineering, Reviews, Videos

Art Insider: An Engineer Reviews Turner’s “Rain, Steam And Speed” (1844)

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The National Gallery (March 1, 2024): Is there engineering in art, as well as art in engineering? We look at Turner’s famous depiction of a steam train in ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’ and stormy seas in ‘Dutch Boats in a Gale’ (1801).

Rob Bell from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers gives us an engineer’s take on these two paintings at the National Gallery. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was founded in 1847 and has over 100,000 members around the world.

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

London Review Of Books – March 7, 2024 Preview

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London Review of Books (LRB) – February 1, 2024: The latest issue features Mothers and Others – ‘The Pole’ and Other Stories by  J.M. Coetzee….

Death of the Book

By Adam Smyth

Sometimes we ignore a book’s material presence: absorbed, ‘good’ reading is often figured as a forgetting of the material conditions of book, body, room and time, even though these conditions affect how we read. With certain other books it makes no sense to separate text from object.

Bibliophobia: The End and the Beginning of the Book 
by Brian Cummings.

Give your mom a gun

By Geoff Mann

There are seventy million more privately held guns in the US – around four hundred million of them – than there are people. AR-15s comprise about 5 per cent of the total, but it is currently the best-selling rifle in the country.

American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 
by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson.

Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture and Control in Cold War America 
by Andrew C. McKevitt.

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Feb 28, 2024

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Country Life Magazine – February 27, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Britain’s Top Dogs’ – Our favorites, decade by decade…

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – March 4, 2024

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A group of small children hold hands and cross a street in Manhattan.

The New Yorker (February 26, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features ‘Victoria Tentler-Krylov’s “All Clear” ‘ – The artist captures New York’s smallest pedestrians as they make their way through the big city.

INSIDE NORTH KOREA’S FORCED-LABOR PROGRAM

Workers sent from the country to Chinese factories describe enduring beatings and sexual abuse, having their wages taken by the state, and being told that if they try to escape they will be “killed without a trace.”

What a Major Solar Storm Could Do to Our Planet

Electricity shooting from the sun to the earth.

Disturbances on the sun may have the potential to devastate our power grid and communication systems. When the next big storm arrives, will we be prepared for it?

By Kathryn Schulz

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Magazines, Museums, Reviews

International Art: Apollo Magazine – March 2024

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Current Issue | Apollo – The International Art Magazine | Apollo Magazine

Apollo Magazine (February 25, 2024): The new March 2024 issue features ‘How Italy remade Willem de Kooning’; Does the art world need gatekeepers?; Angelica Kauffman’s sentimental side…

In the studio with… Manuel Mathieu

The Haitian-Canadian artist surrounds himself with unlikely objects to spark his imagination, books about drawing, and about 25 different types of tea

The clockwork marvels that tell a tale of two empires

These timepieces are fluttering, chiming embodiments of how Britain and China traded with each other in the 18th and 19th centuries

Reel life – how Zineb Sedira found herself through film

At the Whitechapel Gallery, the French-Algerian unspools personal and political histories through imitation sets and empty stages

Arts & Literature, Books, Newspapers, Previews, Reviews

The New York Times Book Review – February 25, 2024

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (February 23, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Dawn of Woman’ – Lucy Sante recounts the trials and joys of her gender transition in a memoir, “I Heard Her Call My Name”…

Lucy Sante Is the Same Writer She Has Always Been

Lucy Sante poses for a portrait in the basement office of her home in Kingston, N.Y. She’s surrounded by shelves packed with books. There’s an open laptop on her desk.

In her memoir “I Heard Her Call My Name,” the author reflects on her life and embarking on a gender transition in her late 60s

The Affair That Split New York High Society

A black-and-white photograph portrays a New York City street scene. Horse-drawn vehicles, men in boaters and derbies, and women in long dresses and hats walk in front of a statue of George Washington.

In “Strong Passions,” the historian Barbara Weisberg tells the story of an explosive, lurid 1860s case that still resonates today.

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Feb 21, 2024

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Country Life Magazine – February 21, 2024: The ‘The Fine Arts Issue’ – Artists who say it with flowers and the AI debate; Wig law, daffodils and how does your hedgerow grow?….

Artificial art

With the technology powering artificial intelligence advancing so rapidly, what can artists do to protect their original work?

Blooming marvellous

Michael Prodger examines how flowers have inspired artists for centuries, from the ancient Egyptians up to the present day

On a wig and a prayer

The periwigs that were a 17th-century status symbol are still a mainstay of our legal system, as Agnes Stamp discovers

Hedge of eternity

They have long been used to contain cattle or define boundaries, but hedges can be beautiful, too, argues Charles Quest-Ritson

Trumpet majors

Alan Titchmarsh takes a wander with Wordsworth as he dreams of spring daffodils ‘fluttering and dancing in the breeze’

Norman Foster’s favourite painting

The architect falls under the spell of a gritty, but humorous work

All in a day’s work

Jamie Blackett is ready to man the barricades to scupper plans for an unwanted national park

Brothers in art

John Goodall applauds the restoration of Leighton House in London, which formed the hub of a 19th-century celebrity circle

Man of the world

Mary Miers follows the globe-trotting Sir John Lavery from Ireland to Africa and beyond

Follow your art

An inspiring oil painting was at the centre of a heist with a happy ending, reveals Carla Passino

Where be dragons?

A protective force in China and Wales, but a symbol of greed and evil in England: Lucien de Guise delves into dragon lore

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell celebrates the best of the Art Deco era with earrings old and new, but always modern

Is this London’s most exquisite hotel room?

The astonishing King’s Lodge suite at The Connaught is fit for a monarch, finds Rosie Paterson

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe shares the very best of London Design Week

A seed of an idea

Tilly Ware meets the wild-seed pioneer ‘nurturing the future’

A tower of thorns

Ben Lerwill finds the salt of the earth on the coast of Scotland

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson on rhubarb

Love and marriage

A real-life couple are in harmony on stage, finds Michael Billington

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Feb 26, 2024

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People enjoy a variety of winter activities like skating sledding and skiing.

The New Yorker (February 19, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Marcellus Hall’s “Winter Wonders” – The artist depicts an array of invigorating, comforting, and delightful cold-weather activities.

Legal Weed in New York Was Going to Be a Revolution. What Happened?

A cannabis leaf growing roots into buildings and piles of paper.

Lawsuits. Unlicensed dispensaries. Corporations pushing to get in. The messy rollout of a law that has tried to deliver social justice with marijuana.

Matt Gaetz’s Chaos Agenda

Matt Gaetz photographed by Mark Peterson Redux for The New Yorker.

The Florida Republican is among the most brazen and controversial figures in Donald Trump’s G.O.P. He’s also among the most influential.

By Dexter Filkins

Representative Matt Gaetz arrived at the White House in the last days of 2020, amid a gathering national crisis. President Donald Trump had lost his bid for reëlection the previous month, and his allies were exploring strategies to keep him in office. Though only thirty-eight years old, Gaetz, the scion of a political family in Florida’s Panhandle, had become one of the Republican Party’s most prominent and divisive figures. His dark hair styled in a kind of bouffant, his lips often curled in a wry smile, Gaetz bore a resemblance to Elvis Presley, or, in the description of a Florida friend, “either Beavis or Butt-head.” He was quick-witted and sometimes very funny, and he loved to taunt his enemies, who were numerous, especially in his own party. “He’s the most unpopular member of Congress, with the possible exception of Marjorie Taylor Greene, and he doesn’t care,” a fellow-congressman told me.