News and reviews
Zsuzsanna Szelényi writes in the Guardian
Added on 13/04/2026
“Europe! Europe! Europe!” That’s what tens of thousands of us chanted on the banks of the Danube on Sunday as Péter Magyar addressed the jubilant crowd. On a record turnout of 77%, Hungarians have delivered a political earthquake, giving Magyar’s Tisza party the first real opportunity in 16 years to dismantle the system built by Viktor Orbán.
READ MOREPortmeirion reviewed in the Spectator
Added on 11/04/2026
The only answer to the question ‘What connects Brian Epstein, Frank Lloyd Wright, Portofino and Stevenage?’ is ‘Portmeirion’, a conceptualised village on the north Wales coast. You could call it a folly, except it is living, not dead; and it exerts a lasting fascination.
READ MORELove is Strong as Death reviewed in the Spectator
Added on 11/04/2026
In the early years of the 20th century, a young philosopher named Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) set himself the task of revitalising German Jewry – of bringing German Jews in from what he saw as the periphery of assimilation to the centre of a living faith.
READ MOREInterview with Daria Santini in Aspects of History
Added on 08/04/2026
The author talks through her background in German literature, her inclination towards cultural history and possible biographies of 20th-century women.
READ MOREDorothea Tanning reviewed in the Spectator
Added on 08/04/2026
I received this book for review on the same day that Dorothea Tanning was making headlines in the auction world, breaking records with the sale at Christie’s of a tiny but key early work for more than £4 million.
READ MOREManchester Unspun mention on BBC News
Added on 07/04/2026
It is the age-old debate – where is England’s second city?
This hotly-contested question over the unofficial title has fiercely divided the Brummies and Mancunians for decades.
READ MOREChapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal featured on BBC News
Added on 04/04/2026
In mid-20th Century Bengal in eastern India, some of the biggest female stars on stage were actually men.
Foremost among them was Chapal Bhaduri – better known as Chapal Rani – the reigning “queen” of jatra, a travelling theatre tradition that once drew vast, fervent crowds.
READ MOREHow to Read Hegel Now reviewed in the TLS
Added on 03/04/2026
In setting out to make the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) comprehensible to a modern audience in her new book, How to Read Hegel Now, Shannon Hoff faces an enormous challenge.
READ MOREArchitecture against Architecture reviewed in the Observer
Added on 02/04/2026
There is, writes Reinier de Graaf, an “unwavering belief that, despite all evidence to the contrary, architecture in its current form continues to represent a force for good”.
READ MOREThe Long Death of Adolf Hitler reviewed in History Today
Added on 01/04/2026
Fumbling for the keys to his Mercedes in a vain attempt to reach his carphone before it stops ringing, an aged but instantly recognisable Adolf Hitler all but ignores a hearty ‘Buenas noches, mein Führer’ from an elderly Nazi cycling past on an upmarket South American street, his arm extended in the time-honoured salute.
READ MORESusan Tomes writes in the Guardian
Added on 31/03/2026
One of the most familiar topics of our time is the trouble many of us have in winding down at the end of the day. Insomnia is rife: crossing the threshold between day and night has become a challenge for many of us.
READ MORERepetition reviewed in the Spectator
Added on 30/03/2026
‘Back then, of course, I didn’t know my parents were locked into an impossibility even greater than mine. That I was living in a crime scene.’ So writes the narrator 48 years after the strange events that unfold in this bitter, brief, shattering novel.
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