Times Literary Supplement (September 18, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Autumn Fiction’ – Rachel Kushner, Olga Tokarczuk, László Krasznahorkai and Sally Rooney; Craig Brown on The Queen; A very Yorkshire horror; China’s Britain complex and The Looting of America…
Part of the intrigue has been which movement would run out of steam first: Trump’s MAGA, through its failures, or Obama’s liberalism, through its successes. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
Contemporary cycling is all about spandex and personal bests. The bicycle designer Grant Petersen has amassed an ardent following by urging people to get comfortable bikes, and go easy. By Anna Wiener
More than beauty, more than color, the artist reveals the doubts that bind us. By Jackson Arn
Some botanists maintain that peas are capable of associative learning, others that tropical vines have a sort of vision. If plants possess sentience, what is the morally appropriate response?
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger
The Nation of Plants by Stefano Mancuso, translated from the Italian by Gregory Conti
Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence by Paco Calvo with Natalie Lawrence
A collection of excerpts from women’s diaries written over the past four centuries offers a vast range of human experience and a subtle counterhistory.
Secret Voices: A Year of Women’s Diaries edited by Sarah Gristwood
The painter Paula Modersohn-Becker’s ascension to greater visibility raises questions about how we assess artistic talent, how reputations are made, and how we reevaluate once-neglected artists, particularly women.
Paula Modersohn-Becker: Ich bin Ich/I Am Me an exhibition at the Neue Galerie, New York City, June 6–September 9, 2024, and the Art Institute of Chicago, October 12, 2024–January 12, 2025
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
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
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
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…
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
‘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.
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.
It’s hard to empirically determine whether they drive voters to the polls. But they might have less measurable effects.
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.
The A.I. revolution is coming to a pharmacy near you.
By Dhruv Khullar
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
Rachel Kushner’s fourth novel tells the story of a spy-for-hire who infiltrates the ranks of a radical French commune.
Why have right-wing ideas found such an eager audience among tech elites during Biden’s presidency?
During the last half-century, artists, curators, and scholars have been increasingly preoccupied with the idea of spectacle and with how to embrace, critique, or co-opt the power of work that envelops and overwhelms the viewer.
Jenny Holzer: Light Line – An exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, May 17–September 29, 2024
Tricks of the Light: Essays on Art and Spectacle by Jonathan Crary
The Avant-Gardists: Artists in Revolt in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, 1917–1935 by Sjeng Scheijen
Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism by Stephen Breyer
In his new book, Reading the Constitution, Stephen Breyer criticizes recent Supreme Court decisions on issues such as abortion and gun rights as the product of rigid and imperfect reasoning rather than of ideology, and he argues for a more pragmatic jurisprudence.
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
How declining enrollment is threatening the future of American public education. By Alec MacGillis
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?
Times Literary Supplement (August 21, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Angels at her table’ – C.K. Stead and Kirsty Gunn on Janet Frame’s singular voice; Pat Barker and Mark Haddon’s modern myths; Rethinking incarceration; How art comes about; Sleep science; Hypochondria and literary reputations….
