Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (April 21, 2023) – This week’s issue features @tylercowen on long- vs short-termism; @ecshowalter on Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor; @NickHoldstock on Wang Xiaobo; @BenBollig on Sergio Raimondi; @islomane on noise pollution – and more.
Literary Review of Canada – May 2023: Andrew F. Sullivan’s The Marigold features a brief epigraph attributed to Rob Ford: “Everything is fine.” Those three words would be a lot more convincing coming from Jane Jacobs or perhaps even Drake, but coming from the late Toronto mayor, they smack of comedy, irony, and foreboding.
On the lost art of public conversation: It is right to be suspicious of anyone who claims that some prior epoch was a golden age of anything, whether it be talk shows, family values, civil discourse, or whatever else they find lacking in their own time.
A historical whodunit: Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder That Shocked Toronto by Carolyn Whitzman
I recently returned to the Metropolitan Opera to see The Hours, based on Michael Cunningham’s novel. It was wonderful to be back in the glittering hall, after three long pandemic years, listening to Renee Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, and Kelli O’Hara bring Virginia Woolf and Cunningham’s other characters to life. That experience sent me looking for novels about music, and I was thrilled to see that Brendan Slocumb has a new one coming out only a year after his bestselling debut,
In the fourth annual Indie Issue, we let the books speak for themselves in these excerpts from a trio of starred Indieland picks: a memoir by two sisters who survived the Holocaust; another memoir about a teen’s coming-of-age on a sailing-school ship; and a collection of short stories from a renowned Bengali author.
In Daniel Seymour’s From Auschwitz With Love, sisters Manci Grunberger Beran and Ruth Grunberger Mermelstein describe their arrival at the concentration camp:
Father realized that we didn’t have much time together. So, he said to us, “No matter what happens, I want you to remember three things.”
The New York Times Book Review – April 16, 2023:
The author’s new book, “Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock,” urges readers to revise their conceptions of time and the world to nurture hope and action for a better future.
A book of photographs taken before February 2022 reveals formerly breathtaking landscapes that may never be the same.
In Jinwoo Chong’s debut novel, “Flux,” a time-warping discovery impacts the lives of three people coping with personal and systemic traumas.
Silicon Valley’s moral bankruptcy by Victor Davis Hanson
The Russian way of literature by Daniel J. Mahoney
China apologetics by Gordon G. Chang
Gillray: national lampooner by Myron Magnet
Like his mentor and colleague Stephen Hawking, Thomas Hertog has never shied away from being ambitious in theorizing about the universe. This sweeping book provides an accessible overview of both what we know about cosmology, and some audacious ideas for moving into the unknown. It is an introduction to Hawking’s final theory, but also a glimpse into even grander theories yet to come.
Professor Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe
Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (April 14, 2023) – This week’s issue features @TristramHuntVA on monuments; @nclarke14 on English caricature; @HettieJudah on Action, Gesture, Paint @_TheWhitechapel; @jntod on J. H. Prynne; @rinireg on the Trump indictment – and more.
The New York Times Book Review – April 9, 2023:
In “Hello Beautiful,” Ann Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic story of four sisters.
“It is your God-given right as an American fiction writer,” Ursula K. Le Guin once said, to change point of view. But “you need to know that you’re doing it,” she warned, and “some American fiction writers don’t.”
The enduring appeal of a midcentury Japanese novelist who wrote of alienation and suicide.
The first thing you hear is an eerie synth tone, followed by a portentous, insinuating voice. “Tell me, Dazai,” it says. “Why is it you wish to die?”
“Let’s turn that question around,” someone earnestly replies. “Is there really any value to this thing we call … living?” Then a beat drops, accompanied by distorted shouts.
These hefty books explore the lives of a former poet, a polarizing artist and a Scottish rebel from unexpected angles.
One of the great attractions of historical fiction is its ability to approach the past from unexpected angles, allowing us to consider famous figures in surprising ways. It’s a tactic that pays off brilliantly in Stephen May’s elegantly acerbic SELL US THE ROPE (Bloomsbury, 240 pp., paperback, $18), which features a thuggish former poet who calls himself Koba. The world will later know him as Stalin.
Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (April 7, 2023) – This week’s @TheTLS, featuring the late Jane Maas on Philip Roth’s great love; David Throsby on consulting firms; an extract from The God Desire by @Baddiel; @LamornaAsh on Max Porter; @funesdamemorius on Mike Nelson; a new poem by Carl Dennis – and more.
Banshee Literary Journal – Spring/Summer 2023:
Issue 15 features poetry from @el_fodongo, Elizabeth McGeown, @JamieOHallo108, @MNSghost, @AnneTannam, @hmorganvl, @crownofpetals, @dogwithoutlegs, @yopopodawn and Derek JG Williams.
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