Mark Fisher
A journey towards faith
A novel set during the Algerian war has chilling relevance to what is happening in the Middle East today
Notes from the departure lounge
Robert McCrum’s Every Third Thought asks: how, when, and where are we going after death?
Romantic Revolutionary
James Hamilton’s biography of Thomas Gainsborough offers a portrait not just of the artist but also of the worlds he moved through
Poetry Prospers
The anthology Hwaet! proves poetry is alive and thriving at the Ledbury Poetry Festival
The Value Of Victoria
Paula Bartley’s biography of Queen Victoria, based on the monarch’s letters and journals, brings out surprising contradictions
Where The White Stuff Came From
Edmund De Waal’s personal history of porcelain
Inside The Club
Conviviality and conversation at a bastion of the Establishment
Majority rule; minority rights
It is folly to treat UK race relations as totally divorced from the rest of human experience. We need to look at the larger global picture
American revolutions: Rewriting the language of the unheard
‘Dissenting viewpoints — for example, the belief that America is not an intrinsically racist country—are shunned as further proof of racist pathologies’
The favourites
From Piers Gaveston onwards, controversial courtiers have a long history in British politics.How unusual is Dominic Cummings?