London Review of Books (LRB) – July 18 , 2024: The latest issue features ‘Bad Times For Biden’; James Butler on ‘What’s a Majority For?; Poems by A.E. Stallings and Rae Armantrout and Thomas Meaney on Red Power Politics…
The Rise and Fall of Treason in English History by Allen D. Boyer and Mark Nicholls
Stephen Sedley
Poem: ‘Hell’
Rae Armantrout
The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future by Franklin Foer
The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House by Chris Whipple
The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy after Trump by Alexander Ward
At the William Morris Gallery: On Mingei
Thomas Meaney
Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History by Ned Blackhawk
Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes
Times Literary Supplement (July 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Ven ice Preserved – La Serenissima down the centuries; Why revolutions fail; Eating ourselves to death and Ozempic nation…
Country Life Magazine (July 9, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Experts’ Experts – 185 heroes the top designers rely on; Top dogs – politics of the village show; Boar wars – what to do with wild pigs; Tea and cakes – the rise and rise of the sponge…
The experts’ experts
Giles Kime and Amelia Thorpe ask Britain’s leading lights in design to name the talented professionals who inspire and transform their own projects
The dog with the waggiest tail
Move over Crufts, the village pooch parade is the one they all want to win with local bragging rights hanging in the balance, as Madeleine Silver discovers
Rooting for the truth
Pilfering pest or beneficial ecosystem engineer? Vicky Liddell examines the often-controversial return of wild boar to Britain’s woodland
Oh, crumbs! Secrets of the sponge
How did the Victoria sponge rise to be fêted as the queen of all cakes? Flora Watkins indulges in the history of the nation’s favourite teatime treat
Philippa Thorp’s favourite painting
The interior designer chooses a powerful work that unlocks a whole range of emotions
The devil is in the detail
Minette Batters insists that the incoming Government must be held to account over the many lavish pre-election promises on food security and farming
Salvaging the vine
In the first of two articles, John Goodall charts the long, hard struggle to bring to fruition one Bishop of Lincoln’s dreams of establishing a college at Oxford
The legacy
Amie Elizabeth White brews up a tale of 18th-century success as she celebrates Thomas Twining’s role as a tea pioneer
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell earns her summer stripes with elegant blue-and-white pieces for home and away
Ancient and modern
George Plumptre is heartened to witness a clever modern renovation of Nash’s Picturesque vision at Sandridge Park, Devon
If you’re lookin’, you ain’t cookin’
Tom Parker Bowles harnesses the flame’s fickle power as he shares a chef’s secrets of the perfect barbecue technique
In the dock
John Wright grasps the nettle in a hands-on investigation into the powers of the dock leaf—and, he says, it is your turn next
Word on the street
Smart Duke Street in London’s St James’s is the epicentre of British art. Carla Passino meets the larger-than-life characters who put the area on the map
Go tell the congregation
Matthew Dennison can’t help but sing the praises of Isaac Watts, that most prolific of hymn writers born 350 years ago
Goodbye, James Anderson
James Fisher pays tribute to English cricket’s legendary fast bowler ahead of his farewell Test match against the West Indies
The actor talks about the origins of “Adaptation,” his potential leap to television, and the art of “keeping it enigmatic.”
By Susan Orlean
The wobbly distinction between reality and artifice fascinates Nicolas Cage. The first time we encountered each other was in 2001, during the making of “Adaptation”—a film based on Charlie Kaufman’s struggle to adapt my book “The Orchid Thief” for the screen—in which Cage played Kaufman and his twin, Donald. He was in the middle of a scene, and I tiptoed onto the set as quietly as possible, convinced that any distraction would trigger one of the eruptions for which Cage had become famous. Between takes, he glanced at the handful of people watching, and exclaimed cheerily, “Oh, guys, look!” He pointed at me and a small, fuzzy-haired man I hadn’t noticed beside me. “It’s the real Charlie and the real Susan!” He seemed tickled by this collision between the characters in the movie and their real-life counterparts, and insisted that the crew take note. (Kaufman and I, who had never met before that moment, slunk away sheepishly.)
It can be easy to take the greatness of “This American Life,” the weekly public-radio show and podcast hosted by Ira Glass, for granted. The show, which Glass co-founded in 1995 at WBEZ, in Chicago, has had the same essential format for twenty-eight years and more than eight hundred episodes. It was instrumental in creating a genre of audio journalism that has flourished in recent decades, especially since the podcast boom—which was initiated by the show’s first spinoff, “Serial,” in 2014. Like “The Daily Show” or Second City, “This American Life” has trained a generation of talented people, and Glass’s three-act structures, chatty cadences, and mixture of analysis and whimsy are now so familiar as to seem unremarkable.
Apollo Magazine (June 2, 2024): The new July/August 2024 issue features
• On the road with Ed Ruscha
• An interview with Jeremy Frey
• How to build a 21st-century museum
• France chases the Olympic dream
Plus: Hildegard Bechtler on the art of stage design, very fancy Victorian ice creams, the art market braces for stormy weather, a Madonna pregnant with meaning and a preview of Parcours des Mondes; reviews of Kafka in Oxford, the gardeners of the Bloomsbury Group, and the silversmith who struck gold for Tiffany & Co.
Eddie Murphy has been so famous for so long, occupying such a lofty place in the cultural landscape, that it can be easy to overlook just how game-changing a figure he actually is.
Let’s start, as Murphy’s career did, with standup. There had been star comics before — Steve Martin, Richard Pryor — but none exploded with anything like Murphy’s speed or intensity.
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation has become a game-changing philanthropic organization, with donations from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Reed Hastings.
Country Life Magazine (July 2, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Call of the Coast’; Seaside treasure – the museum on the cliff; What a scoop – secrets of the ice-cream makers; A boatbuilder’s life, Barbie’s lore and best beach clubs…
Water, water, everywhere
Ben Lerwill drops anchor in the Thames to meet master boat-builder Mark Edwards, whose eclectic roll call of clients includes Elizabeth II and George Clooney
What’s your flavour?
Artisan ice cream makers have got it licked, says Madeleine Silver, as she checks out cones lovingly created using local milk and natural flavourings
You can be anything
Barbie is still in the pink at the age of 65. Susan Jenkins charts the ups and downs of Mattel’s often-controversial, yet still much-loved figurehead
Travel
Rosie Paterson reveals that Italy is still the place to go for unbeatable beach clubs, Richard MacKichan discovers the untouched isle of Formentera and Pamela Goodman carves out her own niche on a transatlantic cruise
Greg Mosse’s favourite painting
The writer chooses a ‘gorgeous panorama’ bursting with fellowship and rustic merry-making
Wrestling alligators in a mud hole
The country is all of a flutter in the build up to the General Election, but all bets are off for an exasperated Carla Carlisle
The legacy
Kate Green marvels at the Minack, Rowena Cade’s breathtaking cliffside amphitheatre
If I only had a brain
Increasing numbers of jellyfish are wobbling their way into British waters, but there’s no need to be alarmed, says Helen Scales
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell’s bold sunglasses leave everyone else in the shade
Interiors
Well-thought-out garden buildings are an ideal way to get closer to Nature, suggests Amelia Thorpe
London Life
Rosie Paterson goes up, up and away for the capital’s Balloon Regatta, Levison Wood is in the hotseat, Holly Black takes the wraps off the new-look Royal Academy Schools and Jemima Sissons is on the comeback trail
Coasting ahead
The D-Day landings were planned from its shores, but today George Plumptre finds a haven of peace at Lepe House in Hampshire
Strawberry dreams
Tom Parker Bowles is seduced by the charms of the strawberry, that most flirtatious of fruits
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson savours the joy of sweet and floral apricots
The dog days aren’t done
All eyes are on St Swithin’s Day as Lia Leendertz examines what weather lore has in store
The New Yorker (July 1, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Kadir Nelson’s “Soft-Serve” – Keeping it cool while keeping cool…
Finally, a Leap Forward on Immigration Policy
President Biden has offered help to undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, in the most consequential act of immigration relief in more than a decade. By Jonathan Blitzer
High-Roller Presidential Donor Perks
Give now to get your name on the wing of a fighter jet!
Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Scabrous Satire of the Super-Rich
In “Long Island Compromise,” wealth is a curse. Or is that just what we’d like to think?
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious