News and reviews

The Malleus Maleficarum reviewed in the TLS

Added on 11/10/2024

The Malleus Maleficarum is a medieval inquisition document, written in Latin by the fifteenth-century German inquisitor Heinrich Kramer (under the name Henricus Institoris) and now republished in an updated translation by Peter Maxwell-Stuart. Like many medieval manuscripts it is a compilation: it contains a disquisition on the nature of magic, a series of mirabilia (marvellous anecdotes) and a practical legal handbook.

Soviet Factography reviewed in the TLS

Added on 11/10/2024

The Soviet Union in the 1920s was, in the words of the pioneering nonfiction film-maker Dziga Vertov, a “factory of facts”. Reality itself was in a state of revolution: a state that had been ravaged by war and upheaval was in the throes of modernization, throwing up new experiences and information at a dizzying rate.

The Enlightenment and Original Sin reviewed in the TLS

Added on 11/10/2024

Matthew Kadane disarmingly describes his new book as an “intellectual history of nobodies”. Its protagonist is the splendidly named Pentecost Barker, born in Plymouth in 1690, the son of devoutly religious parents, who followed his father into the wine trade, but had an unfortunate habit of getting high on his own supply.

Money In Art reviewed in the Daily Mail

Added on 11/10/2024

Throughout history, what has been the power behind the throne? Money, of course! Spanning thousands of years, this fascinating book tracks the influence money has had through art.

A Man With No Title reviewed in the Observer

Added on 06/10/2024

In a recent interview, French Algerian novelist Xavier Le Clerc said he feels otherness in his bones. When his father died in 2020, he decided to tell his story, from his brutal upbringing in northern Algeria and harsh existence during the Algerian war to raising a family in France. His father was illiterate and rarely spoke of his experiences, so Le Clerc imagines much of his past.

Clyde Walcott reviewed in the TLS

Added on 04/10/2024

We may some day be able to answer Tolstoy’s exasperated and exasperating question: What is art? – but only when we learn to integrate our vision of Walcott on the back foot through the covers with the outstretched arm of the Olympic Apollo.” C. L. R. James’s case in Beyond a Boundary for cricket to be acknowledged as “a dramatic spectacle”, essential to the history of the Caribbean, memorably draws on the image of Clyde Walcott at the crease.

The Newsmongers reviewed in the TLS

Added on 04/10/2024

One Saturday eleven years ago, I put on an ill-fitting suit and caught a train to Gatwick Airport. I headed to an airport hotel, where a “coloured diamonds” investments firm was recruiting a new crop of salespeople. I was set a series of bizarre tasks, each of which was followed by several candidates – addressed not by name, but by number – being unceremoniously sent home.

Seven Children reviewed in the Guardian

Added on 30/09/2024

One of the first social rules children learn is the painful necessity of sharing. After the shock of encountering other wants and needs as strong as their own, a child who hands over stickers and sweets to their peers is praised. Yet for adults in the UK, sharing and caring, a glib rhyme that packages an important truth, is no longer a priority.

Robert McCrum writes in the Observer

Added on 29/09/2024

The penalty kick was first proposed to the Football Association as a drastic sanction against dangerous conduct in 1891. Tabled by an amateur goalkeeper from Armagh, it was rejected as an affront to the nobility of the game. How, in a sport played by gentlemen, could there be any foul play? It was, they said, an insult to assume that “players intend to behave like cads”.

Crimean Quagmire reviewed in the Spectator

Added on 28/09/2024

Leo Tolstoy served as a young artillery officer in the defence of the great Russian naval base of Sevastopol against British and French invaders in the middle of the 19th century. The first of his three short stories, collected as Sevastopol Sketches, came out as the siege was still in progress.

Seven Children reviewed in the TLS

Added on 27/09/2024

Danny Dorling’s new book is a stark analysis of poverty and low incomes in Britain today. The author rightly focuses on families with children and pictures the lives of seven children spanning the range of household incomes.

British Comics reviewed in the Morning Star

Added on 27/09/2024

Recently published in paperback, this entertaining, thoughtful and detailed analysis of British comics from the late Victorian period to the present day is not to be missed. Written with insight and passion, if you don’t see yourself as interested in comic books then this might well be the text to get you started.