Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Sept. 11, 2024

Country Life Magazine (September 10, 2024): The latest issue features…

The summit of achievement

Charles Quest-Ritson marvels at Friar Park’s ‘Henley Matterhorn’ in the superb Oxfordshire garden created by the late Beatle George Harrison and his widow, Olivia

How to time travel to spring

Now is the time to plan next year’s colourful garden display. John Hoyland advises what to plant and where for best results

Put a smile on your garden

John Hoyland hails a welcome resurgence in the popularity of pelargoniums, a stalwart that  lights up the summer garden

Sing on, sweet bird

The soothing notes of Britain’s thrushes have long provided a reassuring soundtrack to our lives. Mark Cocker tunes in

Bravery beyond belief

As the Royal Humane Society marks its 250th anniversary, Rupert Uloth recounts a host of incredible life-saving feats

 ‘Without fever there is no creation’

Henrietta Bredin examines how the colourful life of Puccini was reflected in the melodramatic plot lines of his greatest operas

Rachel Podger’s favourite painting

The leading violinist chooses an inspiring, uplifting masterpiece with a beautiful depth of colour

Happiness in small things

The challenges facing female farmers in Africa put life in perspective for Minette Batters      

The great indoors

Amelia Thorpe has the pick of planters and accessories to make the most of your houseplants

Civic splendour

John Goodall is heartened by the restoration of St Mary’s Guildhall, a symbol of Coventry’s great 14th-century prosperity

The legacy

Kate Green applauds the work of Sir Arthur Hobhouse, founding father of our national parks

Let’s get to the bottom of this

Is it a blessing or a curse to find a well on your property? Deborah Nicholls-Lee tests the water

I was on fire for you, where did you go?

David Profumo is in his element as he teases Atlantic salmon from Iceland’s low, clear waters

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell turns over a new leaf with autumn-inspired jewellery

Interiors

It’s show time! Amelia Thorpe seeks Design Week inspiration

Get your cob on

Prepare to be amazed by maize as Tom Parker Bowles savours those golden corn kernels in mouth-watering Mexican style

Foraging

Do you know a damson from a bullace? John Wright revels in the plum job of explaining it all

The colour revolution

The 19th-century development of new paints was a green light for artists, finds Michael Prodger

Colour vision

Rob Crossan catches up with the most famous and enduring face of our television screens

Culture: The American Scholar – Autumn 2024

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR (September 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Queen of the Night’ – Behold the wonders of a Carolina moonflower…

Moondance

Experience the marvel that is night-blooming tobacco By Leigh Ann Henion

In western North Carolina, the mountain growing season is short, and autumn is already tossing yellow-and-red confetti against my windshield as I drive the back roads to my friend Amy’s homestead. Curve after curve, I find locust trees that are a few shades lighter than they were last week. Buckeyes also seem well on their way to change. It is now hard to tell the difference between orange leaves falling and monarch butterfly wings rising. The signs of summer and fall, all intertwining.

Thoreau’s Pencils

How might a newly discovered connection to slavery change our understanding of an abolitionist hero and his writing?

By Augustine Sedgewick

Look Out!

Why did it take so long to protect spectators of America’s favorite pastime?

By Debra Spark

Teach the Conflicts

It’s natural—and right—to foster disagreement in the classroom

By Mark Edmundson

Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept. 16, 2024

Surrounded by cats a woman reads in her apartment.

The New Yorker (September 9, 2024): The latest issue features Mark Ulriksen’s “Childless Cat Lady Inexplicably Enjoying Life” – The artist celebrates the subjects of J. D. Vance’s disparaging comments.

“In the Dark” Reports on the Lack of Accountability for a U.S. War Crime

The podcast investigates the events in Haditha, Iraq, and compiles a database to show the inherent problem of the military judging its own members. By Willing Davidson

Are Your Morals Too Good to Be True?

Scientists have shattered our self-image as principled beings, motivated by moral truths. Some wonder whether our ideals can survive the blow to our vanity. By Manvir Singh

Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic

For years, Russia has been using the Norwegian town of Kirkenes, which borders its nuclear stronghold, as a laboratory, testing intelligence operations there before replicating them across Europe. By Ben Taub

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Sept. 6, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (September 4, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Sinister Beauty’ – Baudelaire and Les Fleurs du Mal; Hitler’s accomplices; No exit in Israel and Palestine; Posing for Lucian Freud and David Peace’s Munich…

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Sept. 4, 2024

Country Life Magazine (September 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Otterly Wonderful’ – How Otters reconquered our rivers…

Building blocks

A sensible framework on land use must be in place before we embark on a ‘build, build, build’ crusade, argues Fiona Reynolds

‘Neither fish nor flesh’

Laura Parker charts the lore and legends attached to Lutra lutra, that bewhiskered, bright-eyed beacon of conservation

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe luxuriates in an array of elegant tubs, tiles and accessories for the bathroom

London Life

  • A fresh vision of the city’s future
  • Tom Parker Bowles lauds the capital’s most fêted restaurateurs
  • Jo Rodgers marvels at a pop-up stationery shop

Travel

News of islands and ice

Jane Wheatley cruises the waters of Indonesia and Australia

Rosie Paterson is on a slippery slope in St Moritz

Pamela Goodman relives the ups and downs of walking on Paxos

Talk of the ton

Susan Jenkins examines the high fashion of the Regency period, from low-cut necklines to trussed-up regal sausages

Claire Booth’s favourite painting

The soprano is moved by an emotional Expressionist work that hits you between the eyes

What’s next?

Carla Carlisle is growing weary of damaging family feuds as she charts a positive way forward

Building nationhood

The meticulous restoration of Villa Golescu in Romania is a tribute to the country’s Revival style, suggests Jeremy Musson

The legacy

Kate Green celebrates the 16th-century life of William Cecil, the man who left us Burghley House      

By the light of the harvest moon

How do onion skins reveal what the winter holds in store? Lia Leendertz explores the weather lore for September

The best seat in the house

Chairmaker Finn Koefoed-Nielsen tells Nick Hammond how he met his ‘national treasure’ mentor Jim Steele thanks to Country Life

Friends in low places

Mark Cocker gives us the low-down on the miracle of moss, a wonder of the natural world that lives right under our feet

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell selects elegant bags that are bound to work for you

It started with a blank canvas

A painterly eye has transformed the gardens at Patthana in Co Wicklow into an artistic delight, reveals Jane Powers

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson revels in the soft and squishy joy of figs

Foraging

Humans have been harvesting hazelnuts for millennia and long may it continue, says John Wright

Books: Literary Review Magazine – September 2024

Literary Review – September 3, 2024: The latest issue features @claire_harman on female detectives; @WomackPhilip on childhood reading; Georgina Adam on art market scandal; @dannykellywords on ageing rockstars and @mathewparris3 on the Queen

Handbags & Handcuffs: “The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective” By Sara Lodge

‘If there is an occupation for which women are utterly unfitted, it is that of the detective,’ claimed the Manchester Weekly Times in 1888 – already behind the times, it seems, as women had been acting the part for years, albeit invisibly. They had started to feature in detective fiction too. It was studying the burgeoning market in ‘lady detective’ stories post-1860 that led Sara Lodge to wonder who the fantasy sleuths were modelled on, and why the Victorians found them so disturbing and alluring.

Forging Ahead: “Rogues and Scholars: Boom and Bust in the London Art Market, 1945–2000” By James Stourton

It is hard to think of a person more qualified to write this book. In addition to being an art historian, a prolific writer, a lecturer and a broadcaster, James Stourton is also a former chairman of Sotheby’s UK. He joined the auction house in 1979 and left in 2012 to become a senior fellow at the Institute of Historical Research.

International Art: Apollo Magazine – September 2024

Apollo Magazine (September 2, 2024): The new September 2024 issue features

• Bringing Pompeii back to life

• The surreal films of Jan Švankmajer

• The cat ladies of contemporary art

• Carlo Scarpa’s cult designs

Plus: 

Apollo celebrates 40 artists, patrons, thinkers and business-people blurring the line between art and craft; the Italian museum memorialising an unsolved plane crash; reviews of Paula Modersohn-Becker in New York, Elisabeth Frink’s menagerie, and Eileen Agar’s memoir of an unconventional life – and Jonathan Lethem remembers meeting a feather-brained friend in Maine

Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept 9, 2024

While babysitting small kids at a park a woman shows another nanny who is wearing a yellow shirt and holding a pink...

The New Yorker (August 26, 2024): The latest issue features R. Kikuo Johnson’s “A Mother’s Work” – A glimpse into the lives of New York’s caretakers.


Do Celebrity Presidential Endorsements Matter?

It’s hard to empirically determine whether they drive voters to the polls. But they might have less measurable effects.

The Magazine for Mercenaries Enters Polite Society

Susan Katz Keating, the editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, discusses how she’s changing the publication and assesses the threat of political violence.

How Machines Learned to Discover Drugs

The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.

By Dhruv Khullar

Previews: Country Life Magazine – August 28, 2024

Country Life Magazine (August 27, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Horsepower’ – Stubbs, Burghley, and ponies at tea parties….

Can I tempt you with another carrot?

There’s bound to be horseplay when you invite a four-hoofed friend to tea. Flora Watkins is handing out the sugar lumps

From Paris, with love

The dust has barely settled on Britain’s equestrian glory at the Olympics as the spotlight falls on Burghley, says Kate Green

Wheels of fortune

A Corsa for the capital, an Aston for the budding bond? James Fisher has just the car for you

The legacy

Amie Elizabeth White applauds Charles Rolls, the man behind the most famous marque in motoring

Hero of the turf

Three centuries after his birth, George Stubbs still stands out as a peerless painter of horses. Jack Watkins celebrates his life

The sweet taste of freedom

You’ll never forget your first car — even if, at times, you’ve really wanted to, finds James Fisher

Eastern promise

In the final part of our series on the new commute, Liz Rowlinson unearths East Anglia’s hidden gems, all within reach of London

The summits of excellence

Adam Hay-Nicholls takes on the Three Peaks, powered by baked beans and Aston Martin’s DBX707

Keep calm and play on

There are still many vital lessons to be learned from playing sport at school, finds Madeleine Silver

Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept 2, 2024

A person riding on a bicycle in warm glowing sunlight seen through some trees.

The New Yorker (August 26, 2024): The latest issue features Pascal Campion’s “The Last Rays of Summer” – Biking into the first signs of fall. By Françoise MoulyArt by Pascal Campion

Can Kamala Harris Keep Up the Excitement Through Election Day?

Image may contain Crowd Person Audience Adult Speech and People

At the Democratic National Convention, the sense of relief was as overwhelming as the general euphoria—but the campaign against Donald Trump has only just begun. By Jonathan Blitzer

The Death of School 10

How declining enrollment is threatening the future of American public education. By Alec MacGillis

Why Was It So Hard for the Democrats to Replace Biden?

After the President’s debate with Trump, Democratic politicians felt paralyzed. At the D.N.C., they felt giddy relief. How did they do it?