“Unscripted,” an account by the Times journalists James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams of the media titan Sumner Redstone’s final years, is a chronicle of corporate greed, manipulation, misogyny and sexual impropriety on a spectacular scale.
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.
“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.
“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.
‘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 Borderby Timothy Phillips
On the Edge: Life along the Russia-China Border by Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
London Review of Books (LRB) – 
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