News and reviews

Anni Albers reviewed in Literary Review

Added on 01/08/2026

Anni Albers, born Annelise Fleisch-mann in Berlin in 1899 into an assimilated Jewish family of great wealth, was drawn in 1922 to the recently formed Bauhaus (1919–33), the values of which must have seemed the antithesis of her privileged upbringing.

Punk rock ruined my life excerpt in NME

Added on 31/07/2026

Acclaimed writer and musician John Robb has shared an excerpt from his new book in which he looks back on being one of the first people to discover Fontaines D.C. and reveals info on two unreleased songs. Check it out below.

Iran and the Revolution reviewed in the Morning Star

Added on 24/07/2026

Homa Katouzian, an Iranian-born academic, has written extensively on Iranian history; his latest book, Iran and The Revolution, covers the period from the early 1940s up to 2025, just before the current war.

Hubris reviewed in the TLS

Added on 24/07/2026

It’s not the trying that counts, it’s the winning. Such was the attitude instilled in Achilles by his father, Peleus, who urged him “always to be best and to surpass all others”.

Philip Roth reviewed in the TLS

Added on 24/07/2026

Philip Roth was terrified of biographers. He repeatedly excavated and transformed his life into “autofiction”, long before that term was in casual use.

The Man Who Read Everything reviewed in the New Statesman

Added on 24/07/2026

We were recently dished the revelation that the ever-dignified Frank Kermode was capable of befriending you in public only to befoul you in private.

Jean-Paul Marat reviewed in the LRB

Added on 23/07/2026

Jean-Paul Marat did not have many friends in politics. Most of the members of the revolutionary assemblies were lawyers, and Marat had a habit of writing the kind of thing that makes a lawyer nervous.

The Modern British City 1945-2000 reviewed in the LRB

Added on 23/07/2026

A friendly ghost hovers over The Modern British City, the collaborative project of a crack team of historians of urban life. H.J.(Jim) Dyos died in 1978, still in his fifties, but as the UK’s first professor of urban history and still more through his enthusiastic collaborations and magpie methods, he indelibly shaped the study of city life.

Converts reviewed in the LRB

Added on 23/07/2026

A Catholic policeman in wartime Sierra Leone finds himself in an almost mathematical bind. It would be a mortal sin for Henry Scobie not to go to Mass with his wife, Louise, but if he does not take Communion when they go, she will suspect that he has been having sex with a young widow.

The Fifth Crusade reviewed in the Spectator

Added on 18/07/2026

The Fifth Crusade, which was fought between 1217 and 1221, marked a new direction for the crusading movement of the Middle Ages. Instead of invading Palestine, as the first three crusades had done, and the Fourth Crusade might have done, the crusaders decided to attack Egypt.

Keynes for Our Times reviewed in the Tablet

Added on 11/07/2026

Robert Skidelsky was days shy of his 87th birthday when he died in April (having been received into the Catholic Church almost on his deathbed), so he could be forgiven if what I count as his ninth book on John Maynard Keynes was a tired rehash. Not a bit of it.

The Enchanting Lives of Others reviewed in the TLS

Added on 10/07/2026

Books about reading can feel like murky propaganda. Authors typically endorse the activity, flattering your participation, as when waiters congratulate you on your choice of dessert.