Tag Archives: Fiction

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – MARCH 6, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘War On Iran’ – The global consequences of Trump’s big gamble. Plus Can the Louvre recover its joie de vivre?

Some weeks I head out of the office on a Friday afternoon with an uneasy feeling that our best-laid plans for next week’s Guardian Weekly might not look quite the same by Monday. This was one of those weeks.

While the scope and power of the US-Israel attack on Iran – not least the successful targeting of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior leaders – took many by surprise, the drums of war had been building for a while. With hindsight, last week’s failed nuclear talks may simply have been cover for what was to come.

As war unfurled dramatically across the Middle East, it was impossible to predict the consequences on a range of fronts, from the likelihood of regime change in Iran to the impact on America’s regional allies under attack, or the ripple effect on global energy prices and disruption to international travel.

Spotlight | Can the Louvre rediscover its joie de vivre?
After a heist and the departure of its boss, the famous Paris museum is wrestling with repairs, strikes and a criticised renovation plan, reports Jon Henley

Science | Do lizards hold the key to how nature works?
The emergence of a new group of common wall lizards offers an insight into how variety within nature can help conserve species, writes Roberto García-Roa

Interview | The world according to Gavin Newsom
He’s the Democratic politician with movie-star looks, dogged by accusations of being a smooth‑talking elitist. But Gavin Newsom may just win the most powerful office in the world. Jonathan Freedland finds out why

Opinion | Labour needs to wake up to the dawning of a new political era
After last week’s disastrous showing in a byelection, the government must accept voters no longer want two-party politics, argues John Harris

Culture | The wild and witty paintings of Rose Wylie
Roaring into her 90s, the rebellious artist is now sought after by galleries worldwide and her works fetch huge sums. Melissa Denes visited her studio

LITERARY REVIEW ———- MARCH 2026 PREVIEW

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Richard Vinen on the General Strike * George Prochnik on Chaim Soutine * Michele Pridmore-Brown on the fertility industry * Peter Davidson on John Aubrey * Joan Smith on Gisèle Pelicot * Piers Brendon on Kathleen Harriman * Jonathan Keates on the Venetian Ghetto * Erik Linstrum on Asante gold * Zoe Guttenplan on road signs * Holly E J Black on illustration * Michael Burleigh on the Arctic * Frances Cairncross on corporate scandals * Andrew Seaton on wind power

Not Funny, Not Forgotten

The historian A J P Taylor was at Oxford during the general strike of 1926. After it, he later recalled, relations between the minority of undergraduates, such as himself, who had gone to help the strikers and those who had signed on as special constables or volunteer strike-breakers were cordial. Only those sensible men who had stuck to their books and essays were disdained. The whole episode seemed funny in a stereotypically English way – like a Punch cartoon brought to life.

Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art

By Celeste Marcus

The artist Chaim Soutine was obsessed with Rembrandt’s painting of a flayed and headless ox. After managing at the age of twenty, in 1913, to get from Smilovichi, a shtetl in present-day Belarus, to Paris, Soutine made many visits to the Louvre to study the canvas. In the mid-1920s, he decided to translate it into his own idiom: a voluminous impasto, churning with deep, febrile … 

Cash Cow: How the Maternal Body Became a Global Commodity – and the Hidden Costs for Women

By Alev Scott

Fuelled by desire and desperation, and considerable hucksterism, the global fertility industry is sometimes seen as having kinship with the sex trade. Its critics are keen to point out that it’s saturated with eugenicist values and geographic exploitation. In a not atypical scenario, a handful of ‘white eggs’ are purchased … 

John Aubrey at four hundred

Whenever I approach the blind corner on the path south of my house in Oxford, I ring my clear-toned bicycle bell and think of John Aubrey, who noted in the 17th century that church bells sound clearer after rain (which was true for my little bell today). I have often also passed on to tense students approaching their final exams Aubrey’s excellent advice that you are ‘more apt to study’ if you’ve played a gentle game of real tennis (or some less real modern equivalent). And whenever I find… 

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 27, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Can Britain’s Monarchy Survive the Andrew Crisis?’…

The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor last week, after allegations he had shared confidential information with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sent shock waves around the world.

What happens next is unclear, but the ramifications will go far beyond the former prince, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. It was one of the most consequential days for Britain’s monarchy in generations, shattering the traditional aura of royal mystique and raising questions of accountability, deference and whether the royal family should have acted sooner.

In a powerful essay for our big story this week, Stephen Bates asks whether the royal family can survive the unfolding scandal.

Spotlight | The limits to the supreme court’s assent
Last week’s declaration by the conservative-heavy court that Trump’s sweeping tariffs are unlawful is a major setback for the president, writes Ed Pilkington

Health | Why big pharma stands to gain from weight-loss pills
Oral tablets could bring obesity treatment into the mainstream, with the sector predicted to be worth $200bn by the end of the decade. Julia Kollewe reports

Special report | The road to war in Ukraine
In a remarkably detailed piece drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders, Shaun Walker explains how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans – and why nobody believed them

Opinion | A degree? A trade? Every rung for young people is a trap
Is it to be a degree and heavy debt when graduate jobs are shrinking? Or forgoing a degree, knowing society still worships them? Confused, angry: who wouldn’t be, asks Jason Okundaye

Culture | Big in Beijing (but less so in Blackpool)
James Balmont’s band, Swim Deep, plays to crowds of hundreds across the UK – but in China, they perform in front of tens of thousands. And they’re not the only ones

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – MARCH 12, 2026

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features

If These Walls Could Talk

In A House for Miss Pauline, the Jamaican novelist Diana McCaulay examines her family’s shadowy history by telling the story of a woman who builds her house with the remains of the manor of a former slave plantation.

A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay

A Bitter Winter in Ukraine

Four years after their full-scale invasion, the Russians are trying to freeze Ukraine into submission by relentlessly attacking the country’s energy grid.

A Real Live Socialist

What Bernie Sanders brought to the job of mayor of Burlington and what he did with it help explain what matters to him and how he fits into American political argument.

Bernie for Burlington: The Rise of the People’s Politician and the Transformation of One American Place by Dan Chiasson

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 20, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘One Day In Rio’ – The untold story of Brazil’s deadliest police raid.

The first shots of an infamous day were fired in Rio’s Complexo da Penha favela at 4.30am. It was 28 October 2025 and the deadliest police raid in Brazil’s history had just begun. By the end of the day, 122 people, including five police, were dead.

The raid, nicknamed Operation Containment, was intended to apprehend members of one of the country’s most powerful organised crime groups, the Red Command – and in particular its kingpin, Edgar Alves de Andrade, who is also known as “the Bear”.

But the list of 100 arrest warrants justifying the operation featured none of the 117 people killed, and at least one of the dead was not involved in organised crime at all. The Bear, meanwhile, remains at large. Activists, security experts and even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have described the operation as a futile massacre.

Now, in a forensic investigation encompassing interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian’s South America correspondents Tom Phillips and Thiago Rogero have pieced together the full, previously untold story of what happened.

The big story | Continental drift in Munich
Europe’s leaders met to discuss the continent’s future safety at the Munich Security Conference, a gathering characterised by mistrust of the US Trump administration and divisions over Ukraine. Patrick Wintour was there

Spotlight | Pressure mounts for Andrew to talk to police
As calls for the former prince to cooperate with the investigation become deafening, this may be the reckoning the British king’s brother cannot escape. Caroline Davies and Alexandra Topping investigate

Interview | Tracey Emin on reputation and radical honesty
She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now Tracey Emin is as frank as ever, as Charlotte Higgins discovered

Opinion | Iran’s 1979 revolution offers some present-day pointers
The similarities between Iran’s current crisis and events preceding the shah’s exile are striking. The radical clerics benefited then – but, asks Jason Burke, who would prevail this time?

Culture | Thundercat on funk, lost friends and being fired by Snoop Dogg
The genre-hopping bass virtuoso has backed Ariana Grande and Herbie Hancock, appeared in Star Wars and become a boxer. Stephen Bruner explains his polymath mindset to Alexis Petridis

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 13, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘The Men’s Club’ – Epstein’s world and the attendant role of women…

The latest tranche of the Jeffrey Epstein files have been in the public domain for less than two weeks, but already their contents have sent shock waves around the world.

Nowhere is this more true than in Britain, where the fallout has come to the door of Keir Starmer over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington, amid questions about how much the prime minister knew of his former envoy’s links to Epstein.

Starmer looks to have weathered the immediate pressure to resign this week, despite having lost his influential chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the scandal. But the vultures are still circling and it seems a matter of when, rather than if, the prime minister will go. Kiran Stacey weighs up the possible challengers from within the Labour party, while Oliver Holmes and Chris Michael consider why the scandal hit home so hard in the UK.

Spotlight | The last post for press freedom in the US?
Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the Washington Post has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Donald Trump’s attacks. Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr report

Technology | The continuing risks and rewards of AI
As policymakers and tech executives prepare for the next global AI summit in India, an annual safety report highlights the issues that will be at stake, writes Dan Milmo

Interview | Can Zack Polanski pull off a green revolution in the UK?
With polls and membership at an all-time high, the UK Green party is having a moment – and it’s largely down to the party’s charismatic (if slightly cheesy) new leader. Simon Hattenstone went on the road with him

Opinion | What links UK politics and Epstein? A thick seam of contempt
We’re often told the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is a ‘decent’ man. But in appointing Peter Mandelson he chose political convenience over doing right, argues Nesrine Malik

Culture | The sign language of Margaret Calvert
Airports, road signs, typefaces … the design legend revolutionised how Britain looked and her brilliantly clear designs are still used today. Catherine Slessor met her

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – FEBRUARY 26, 2026

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Fintan O’Toole on the murders in Minneapolis, Trevor Jackson on the problem with central banks, Ingrid D. Rowland on Fra Angelico, Namwali Serpell on Toni Morrison’s sense of humor, Julian Gewirtz on the new microchip race, Vivian Gornick on Arundhati Roy, Joy Neumeyer on Poland’s far right, Ian Tattersall on all creatures great and small, Maurice Samuels on escaping the Nazis in Vichy France, Ben Rhodes on Robert McNamara’s sins, poems by Mary Jo Salter and James Arthur, and much more.

The Crime of Witness

Fintan O’Toole

Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.


The Struggle for the Fed

Trevor Jackson

The Fed is under attack. Can it be both protected and held accountable?

Our Money: Monetary Policy As If Democracy Matters by Leah Downey

Private Finance, Public Power: A History of Bank Supervision in America by Peter Conti-Brown and Sean H. Vanatta

Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead by Kenneth Rogoff

When the Chips Are Down

President Trump’s reversal of a ban on sales of advanced semiconductors to China undercut the strategic logic behind years of American policy that was meant to keep the US ahead in the race to develop AI systems.

The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China by Ya-Wen Lei

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt

The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant by Tae Kim

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 6, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘USA-IRAN’ – Collision Course….

Have Donald Trump’s hard talk and the arrival of a strike-ready flotilla finally made Tehran blink? It certainly seemed so by Monday evening, when Iran said it was willing to talk. A week of trading threats turned to strong indications that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy, and Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s minister for foreign affairs, were readying to meet in Istanbul on Friday. In this week’s big story, Ashifa Kassam and Andrew Roth chart how momentum to war slowed and fears of a wider regional conflict eased, albeit marginally.

The background to Trump’s war of words against Tehran was the huge protests that rocked Iran last month, until they were brutally repressed by the regime. Analysts suggest a fragile domestic security situation prompted the Iranian government’s softening towards US demands. Our diplomatic editor and longtime Iran watcher, Patrick Wintour, explains that while the streets are now quiet, a shift in the balance of power between the people and the government has emboldened domestic demands for a full investigation of the killing and imprisonment of protesters.

Spotlight | The Epstein files, part two
Daniel Boffey details the biggest bombshell among the 3m newly released documents: disgraced former minister Peter Mandelson’s deep and compromising relationship with the convicted paedophile

Environment | Nature runs wild in Fukushima
Free of human habitation after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, Fukushima is now teeming with wildlife. But this haven could vanish if people come back, finds Justin McCurry

Features | From hope to despair
The postwar new town of Newton Aycliffe with its boarded up shops is a symbol of the Britain’s economic gloom – and a warning for Labour as it battles the rise of Reform UK, reports Josh Halliday

Opinion | Art, groceries, Greenland – thieves are everywhere
Jonathan Liew reflects on how we all seem to live in a world defined by petty theft and no one, whether it’s the pickpocket or the big AI company, seems to get punished

Culture | Small acts of magic
Mackenzie Crook tells Zoe Williams how his approach to comedy has mellowed with age. Gone is the nervous, awkward energy of Gareth from The Office, to be replaced by the gentle curiosity that animates his new series Small Prophets

LITERARY REVIEW —- FEBRUARY 2026

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Norma Clarke on Charlie Chaplin’s London; Richard Bourke on revolution; Lucasta Miller on George Sand; Peter Davidson on Constable; Philippe Marlière on far-right France; Munro Price on the Marquis de Morès; Piers Brendon on Trotsky’s demise; Mark Glancy on Hitchcock’s scores

High-Builded Clouds – Constable’s Year: An Artist in Changing Seasons By Susan Owens

Where Fry Met Laurie – The Cambridge Footlights: A Very British Comedy Institution By Robert Sellers

Partners in Suspense – Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores That Changed Cinema By Steven C Smith

Literary Review Of Canada – March 2026 Preview

March 2026 Archives | Literary Review of Canada

Literary Review of Canada The latest issue features:

Ulysses Unbound

Navigating this Age of Appetite by Krzysztof Pelc

Here’s a question I often bat around with graduate students in my International Political Economy seminar: In book 12 of the Odyssey, how do the shipmates know which Ulysses to trust?

You know the story. Ulysses and his crew have been on Circe’s island for a year. They’re finally about to depart when the goddess takes Ulysses aside and warns him of the dangers that await them. The first of these is the “piercing songs” of the Sirens. “So listen,” she says, “I will give you good instructions; another god will make sure you remember.”

Circe tells Ulysses to put wax in his sailors’ ears but that he can listen to the Sirens if he wants to — as long as his shipmates bind him “hand and foot” to the mast: “So bound, you can enjoy the Sirens’ song. But if you beg your men to set you free, they have to tie you down with firmer knots.”

As their ship approaches the Sirens’ sharp rocks, the wind dies down, they pull the sails, and they begin to row. As predicted, Ulysses yells out to his men to set him free. He is still their captain. But instead of obeying his orders, Eurylochus and Perimedes stand up and “tie him down with firmer knots.” How, I ask my students, do they know to trust the first Ulysses over the second? How is it that as readers, we never question their choice?

Cemented Legacy

Form follows Ford by Kelvin Browne 

Albert Kahn has been called “the father of industrial architecture” and “the architect of Detroit.” His firm was certainly prolific: it was responsible for the Ford Motor Company of Canada factory in Toronto, near a laneway that bears his name, and the General Motors assembly plant in Regina, along with nearly 900 buildings in Motor City alone. Kahn’s oeuvre encompassed offices, grand homes for his industrialist clients, and libraries and fraternity houses at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, not to mention a post office, a synagogue, and multiple hospitals and skyscrapers. Many of Kahn’s buildings reflect a pastiche of styles that might be considered a precursor of a postmodern eclectic. Yet this prolific architect is relatively unknown today, especially outside of Michigan.

Albert Kahn Inc.: Architecture, Labor, and Industry, 1905–1961 by Claire Zimmerman

The MIT Press / 488 pages, hardcover

Floe State? – On trouble in Greenland

By Michael Strizic

The mood on the Sea Adventurer’s bridge was grim. “She’s only making eight knots,” said our expedition leader. “We need to hit at least fourteen to keep to our itinerary.” We were four days into a two-week sailing and anchored off Ilulissat, near a UNESCO World Heritage site nestled into the crenellated western coast of Greenland.

Earlier that day, I had found myself at the helm of a Zodiac, manoeuvring the rubberized craft through thick fog, near-freezing water, and growlers. The ten high-paying passengers under my care likely had no idea that this was my first trip with the tour operator or my first time north of the Arctic Circle.