Tibor Fischer
Powerful stuff: I can’t wait for the sequel
The novel in verse is nothing new, but Homer’s Iliad is fast-paced and full of surprises
Novel approach
The five Ancient Greek romances that have made it down to us in their entirety are an enigma
A currency to make bankers cry
Bitcoin is a fascinating hybrid: part cult, part asset, part business enterprise, part currency, part fad—and it appeals to the best and worst of human nature
How the truth can set you free
Jordan Peterson is erudite and well read but 12 Rules for Life has much of the tenor of a typical self-help book
Hopes and fears of all the years
The little town of Bethlehem has been irrevocably linked with Western visions of the Holy Land, but Nicholas Blincoe shows there is much more to its history
Dead horse, the flogging of
A collection of Martin Amis’s essays caresses the bottom of the barrel
America’s First Lady Of Letters
Gertrude Himmelfarb’s essays are impressively erudite and wide-ranging
A Sponger’s Ticket To The Finland Station
The irony of Lenin, Victor Sebestyan’s biography reveals, is that he was profoundly bourgeois
Sound, Fury and Not Much Else
Slovenia’s second most famous export, Slavoj Žižek, gets full marks for effort, but his 1970s dialectic seems a bit retro
American Nightmare
Lionel Shriver’s latest novel is a a speculative spin on the disintegration of the United States
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