APOLLO MAGAZINE (March 31, 2025): The April 2025 issue features ‘The sonic visions of Oliver Beer’; The Frick returns to Fifth Avenue and How the Acropolis became modern….
The Frick returns to Fifth Avenue
An interview with Oliver Beer
How the Acropolis became modern
In praise of ‘degenerate’ art
Also: The duchess who scandalised Spain, why the market for women’s art is slowing, Dutch paintings at Apsley House, how Bugatti built a style icon, the sensational designs of Alphonse Mucha, and a preview of Art Dubai; reviews of Gertrude Abercrombie in Pittsburgh, Medardo Rosso in Vienna, and a history of image-eating. Plus: Will Wiles on a French avant-garde portrait with a family connection
HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (March 25, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Lost World of Ancient Assyria’ – The Library of Ashurbanipal, the African king at Edward VII’s coronation, the origins of India’s Brahmins, British witnesses to Buchenwald, spinning James I’s succession, and more.
Can Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial by Clive Webb rescue Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre’s activism from irrelevance?
COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE (March 11, 2025): The cover of Country Life’s 12 March 2025 issue, featuring The Garden Hall at Pitshill House, West Sussex, as photographed by Paul Whitbread.
Water you wading for?
The village pond, once the hub around which community life revolved, is being reinvented as a ‘superpower’ habitat for rare species, finds Vicky Liddell
Sorry seems to be the easiest word
Deborah Nicholls-Lee makes no apology for asking why there is nothing more British than saying sorry (up to eight times a day, we regret to say)
Two’s company, three’s a crowd farmer
Jane Wheatley is impressed by a new European project linking farmers direct to consumers in an effort to ensure fair pricing
Peak sugar
Harry Pearson is sweet on Kendal Mint Cake, the original energy snack that is still going strong after conquering Everest and crossing the Antarctic
Arts & antiques
Nature’s beauty and vulnerability are laid bare in a new exhibition at Chatsworth in Derbyshire, as Carla Passino discovers
Josh Eggleton’s favourite painting
The chef and restaurant owner chooses a contemporary collage that keeps the viewer guessing
Like cats on a hot tin roof
A feline stand-off in a Wiltshire farmyard has echoes of tax and trade talks for Minette Batters
Gothic splendours
John Goodall hails the rebirth of Victorian gem Allerton Castle in North Yorkshire, some two decades after a devastating fire
The legacy
Kate Green lauds the brilliant, but tragically brief blooming of cello prodigy Jacqueline du Pré
The red army
Ian Morton reveals why we don’t want wood ants in our pants
The good stuff
Pretty pastels are back for spring, so think pink, says Hetty Lintell
Bring me everlasting flowers
Catriona Gray meets a man crafting blooms from coppiced hazel
If you want colour…
Picture-perfect primulas offer an easy way to festoon the garden with a kaleidoscope of colour, suggests Charles Quest-Ritson
Foraging
John Wright savours the peppery crunch and kick of black mustard, but he’ll never pick it in Yeovil
It’s a Scream
The wild work of Edvard Munch betrayed a troubled soul, but the Norwegian artist found salvation in Nature, declares Jessica Lack
Kate Green celebrates the Revd Gilbert White, the original ecologist whose 1789 book on flora and fauna has never been out of print
Mad as a box of frogs
Our amphibious friends were once thought to possess mystical powers and they now aid the advance of medicine, as Ian Morton discovers
The ghost of golden daffodils
David Jones traces the fall and rise of the Tenby daffodil — all but extinct in the wild, but making a return as a cultivated bloom
The lure of Venice
Matthew Dennison investigates Britain’s long-standing love affair with the Italian maritime republic, fuelled by Canaletto’s enchanting, kaleidoscopic vedute
Playing the fool
Who could have foreseen the influence of tarot cards down the ages? Deborah Nicholls-Lee delves into decks and divination
Dr Ximena Fuentes Torrijo’s favourite painting
The Ambassador of Chile picks a vast, dreamlike Surrealist work that portrays a turbulent world.
A sense of delight
John Goodall marvels at the outstanding array of new and restored buildings on the grand Aldourie estate in Inverness-shire
Snakes and snails and puppy-dog tales
Matthew Dennison pays tribute to Peter and Iona Opie, who pre-served much-loved folklore and fairy tales for future generations
The good stuff
Work out in style with Hetty Lintell’s elegant exercise picks
Interiors
Amelia Thorpe shares the best of London Design Week wares, plus an elegant room with a view
Shaping the view
Tiffany Daneff admires the vista of rural Northamptonshire from the delightful Modernist garden created for a converted cart house
Foraging
Listen in as John Wright shares his thoughts on wood ears, the fungus with a gelatinous texture
Arts & antiques
Thomas Girtin’s exquisite landscapes were a match for Turner before the artist was cut down in his prime, reveals Carla Passino
History triumphs over invention
A brilliantly acted historical play conquers overproduced Greek mythology for Michael Billington
Stalling the next release of hostages from the Gaza Strip, scheduled for the coming weekend, raises new challenges for the already tenuous six-week truce and chances for a lasting end to the war.
The agency had been one of Wall Street’s most feared regulators, with the power to issue rules on mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other areas affecting Americans’ financial lives.
Trump’s Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say
Law professors have long debated what the term means. But now many have concluded that the nation faces a reckoning as President Trump tests the boundaries of executive power.
With a compliant Congress and mostly quiet streets, the president’s opponents are turning to the judicial branch with a flurry of legal actions. But can the courts keep up?
The president said he planned sweeping tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Monday and would take other action to even out tariff rates with the rest of the world later this week.
In the three weeks since President Trump took office and gave Elon Musk free rein inside the federal government, millions of calls have poured in to members of Congress, jamming the system.
For Stunned Federal Workers, Sleeplessness, Anger and Tears
One thing lost in the Trump administration’s war on the federal bureaucracy is the collective voice of the employees. But some have begun to speak out.
Much of the billionaire’s handiwork — gaining access to internal systems and asking employees to justify their jobs — is being driven by a group of engineers operating in secrecy.
President Trump’s aggressive moves against transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion programs have left the Democratic Party casting about for a strategy for how to respond.
The distinctive domed building, turning 50 this year, is known for hosting the Super Bowl, but to locals, it’s also “the city’s living room.”February 6, 2025
Why Federal Courts May Be the Last Bulwark Against Trump
With a compliant Congress and mostly quiet streets, President Trump’s opponents are turning to a flurry of legal actions. But can the courts keep up?
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious