Books

There’s nothing like a crisis of survival to show people’s true natures. Though I’ve written a good deal about tumultuous times, both fiction (English Passengers) and non-fiction (Rome: a History in Seven Sackings), I can’t say I’m too interested in the tumult itself. I’m more interested in the decisions people make during such crises – how they ride the wave. … [Read more...] about Top 10 books about tumultuous times

“Given the stakes, which equate to no less than genocide against black people, the watery vagaries of this statement are, ultimately, a violence. We demand that the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine do more and do better,” said the letter, calling for the resignation of both the president and board of trustees chair, and for the “significantly greater allocation of financial resources toward work which is explicitly anti-racist in nature”. Until the demands were met, the poets said, they would not be submitting any work to the magazine. … [Read more...] about US books world rocked by racism rows

“I have no problem calling Donald a narcissist ... but the label gets us only so far,” she writes, adding that the President might also suffer from other pathologies that prevent him from accepting responsibility for his actions and empathising with others. She writes that he also may suffer from learning and sleep disorders. … [Read more...] about Donald Trump’s niece describes ‘malignantly dysfunctional family’ in new book

To Kill a Mockingbird is far from the only classic whose legacy readers must grapple with. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books are marked by problematic depictions of Native and black characters. The Hardy Boys series was revised after its publication to remove racist content. In the realm of science fiction and fantasy, H. P. Lovecraft’s xenophobic beliefs have repulsed many writers: In 2016, the World Fantasy Awards stopped using Lovecraft’s image for its trophies. … [Read more...] about The Books Briefing: How to Read a Classic Today

He sent a copy of The Peregrine to the film director Werner Herzog; Herzog read it and was astonished. He has since spoken often of the book, and it is now one of only three required texts for his Rogue Film School – along with Virgil’s Georgics and Hemingway’s story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. Herzog describes The Peregrine as inducing “ecstasy” in the radical sense of the word: not just entranced or frenzied, but literally beside oneself. There are moments, he notes, “where you can tell that [Baker] has completely entered into the existence of a falcon. And this is what I do when I make a film: I step outside of myself into an ekstasis; in Greek, to step outside of your own body.” … [Read more...] about Violent spring: The nature book that predicted the future