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
Will the green agenda be killed off by the pandemic?
‘Will the green agenda be killed off by the longer-term coronavirus recovery? Or might the closure of so much business, and the cleaner air that results from planes not flying and factories not working, give us extra years to gain control of our environment?’
Why T.S. Eliot still matters
His contemporaries’ reputations have diminished. But Eliot’s has grown: he is the poet who shows us what can be saved from the ruins
Music’s in the house
Rappers have found a role in lockdown: chronicling coronavirus with topical tunes. Most people, though, are rushing to the safety of the past