David Herman
To whom does Kafka belong?
In telling the story of Kafka’s papers, Benjamin Balint’s new book explores a larger issue: who owns Kafka?
Low points of life with Father
This has been an extraordinary autumn for books about the havoc bad fathers wreak on their children. It is hard to know which father comes out worst: Jonathan Miller or Steve Jobs
Acerbic enemy of cowardice
The latest volume of Frederic Raphael’s diaries is a book full of bite and feline gossip
The boy in the ice-cream shop
Was Hans Asperger a benevolent and humane doctor? Or was he deeply implicated in Nazi psychiatry and its darkest episode, euthanasia?
Overrated: Ken Loach
The socialist filmmaker has usually been more popular with critics and film prize juries than with the public
Monument to a moment
Why is the BBC’s Civilisations such a mess?
Family saga in war and peace
The story of a family over two generations becomes embedded in the history of the 20th century in Mark Mazower’s What You Did Not Tell
Ignored no more
David Bomberg was one of the great British artists of the 20th century but was always an outsider and suffered neglect for much of his career
Thespian Agitprop
Why is British theatre about Israel so relentlessly one-note?
Shouted down
Honest analysis of Labour under Corbyn during the election was buried by mainstream news outlets
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal