top of page
Modern Classics
LILY HERD - A. E. Stallings grapples with modern tragedies.
Jun 30, 20195 min read
Going Underground
MILO NESBITT - Visiting the world beneath our feet with Robert Macfarlane's "Underland".
Jun 29, 20198 min read
Crossing the River
CHANG CHE - The Communist Party once extolled its feminists as a symbol of national pride -- now, it has turned against them.
Jun 27, 20198 min read
The Man Who Knew Too Much
MAX NORMAN - An Enlightenment philosopher's flirtation with authoritarianism.
Jun 25, 20199 min read
Finishing the Unfinished
EDWARD CAMPBELL-ROWNTREE - A Chinese tech giant attempts to complete Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony.
Jun 21, 20198 min read
What's So Funny?
ARTHUR JAMES - Canned laughter and the death of comedy.
Jun 20, 20199 min read
Indelicate Flowers
JALEH BRAZELL - At the V&A, Dior's feminine silhouettes contrast with Quant's practical designs.
Jun 19, 201910 min read
Phantom Lap of Honour
CHRISTY EDWALL - The final words of the difficult, renowned poet Geoffrey Hill.
Jun 17, 20199 min read
An Essential Witness
Michel Houllebecq's new novel 'Serotonin' is as inflammatory as it is prescient.
Jun 14, 201911 min read
Solidarity in Numbers
Feminist movements in the age of neoliberalism.
Jun 12, 201910 min read
Strange Truths
Once upon a time, at the mouth of the river Ganges, were to be found a race of men who lived by smell alone. Called the ‘Astomi’ by the...
Jun 6, 201911 min read
Art and Artifice
Amedeo Modigliani’s portrait of his friend, the painter Pierre-Edouard Baranowski, hangs in the de Young museum of San Francisco, but it...
Jun 6, 201914 min read
Magical Thinking
Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry Eds. Sarah Shinn and Rebecca Tamas 2019 ‘Spells are poems; poetry is spelling’, is the enchanting...
May 31, 20198 min read
Dead Air
2018 marked the five-year anniversary of author Doris Lessing’s death. This fact made it all the more surprising when, sat in my kitchen...
May 27, 201911 min read
Shortcuts and Monuments
In a recent edition of its weekend books supplement, the Guardian published a list of fifty recommended short stories. The saints were...
May 25, 201910 min read
From the Pulpit
JOSHUA ALLAN - The collected speeches of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
May 25, 201911 min read
Now You're Talking
Evolution Eileen Myles, Grove Press, 2018 In an interview between Eileen Myles and their ex Jill Soloway in front of a live audience, the...
May 19, 20199 min read
Ghosts and Serpents
The Essex Serpent Sarah Perry, Serpent's Tail, 2016 Melmoth Sarah Perry, Serpent's Tail, 2018 Ghost Helen Grant, Fledgling Press, 2018...
May 16, 20199 min read
Notre-Dame: A Personal View
On 15 and 16 April 2019 Notre-Dame de Paris, a jewel of Gothic architecture, of France, of Western civilisation, of collective memory and...
May 8, 20198 min read
Gracious Forms
There are few contemporary poets who can go from lyricising the sooty imprints of a bird’s wings on a ceiling to pondering philosophical...
May 6, 201910 min read
bottom of page