London Review of Books
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Critical thinking, published every fortnight. Read at lrb.co.uk Try the LRB for just £6: lrb.me/social
‘Helenio Herrera’s life was enveloped in layers of fantasy and invention. He even faked his date of birth.’ @footymac.bsky.social on the European football manager, ‘one of the most famous people in Italy in the 1960s’: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
John Foot · Superstar or Supervillain: Football’s Dark Arts
Helenio Herrera’s life was enveloped in layers of fantasy and invention. He even faked his date of birth. We can’t...
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‘The great cliché of failed military planning is that generals always fight the last war. In Japan, it was worse: the generals didn’t even have an accurate account of that war.’ Christopher Harding on the Japanese Second World War general Tōjō Hideki. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Christopher Harding · Sometimes a man has to jump: General Tōjō’s Downfall
Early in July 1942, people on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaidō became aware that a man was rifling...
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‘Like Cruise, Iñárritu is a perfectionist and a try-hard. His films have a recognisable – and recognisably virtuosic – grammar, with their long tracking shots, constant camera movement and seamlessly stitched-together scenes.’ Ruby Hamilton watches 𝘋𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ruby Hamilton · At the Movies: ‘Digger’
The last time Tom Cruise played a villain seriously was more than two decades ago, silver-haired and wolfish as a hitman...
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‘As feminist and sex liberationist ideas about consent, kink and fetish gain greater purchase, we must reckon with the fact that their misappropriation by predators can make coercion seem acceptable, or at least difficult to recognise.’ Katie Tobin on Russell Brand. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Katie Tobin | Beyond Consent
Russell Brand has been sentenced to ten years in prison for raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others. For...
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I might be the only person I know who thinks JD Vance could end up invoking the 25th Amendment. If it happens, this is the post you'll be glad to have read! @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Deborah Friedell | #TFA
Since the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967, the temporary transfer of presidential powers has become almost routine...
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‘Verdi’s 𝘍𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧 leaves him cold (like Coleridge and the sunset, he can see, not feel, how beautiful it is); as to Italian opera, the entire corpus eludes him. This ebullient partiality is the book’s great virtue.’ Nicholas Spice on a survey of western classical music www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Nicholas Spice · Eat your thesaurus, Barthes! How to Think about Music
Music’s Odyssey is a hecatomb of sacred cows: Hildegard of Bingen (‘psychedelic bore’); the first movement of...
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Announcing the 𝘓𝘙𝘉 Winter Lectures for 2027. Jonathan Rée will give the first lecture, titled ‘The Invention of Marxism’, on Thursday, 11 February at the Royal Institution. Tickets here: www.tickettailor.com/events/londo...
‘Preserving the memory of those who have gone missing is part of the organisation’s work to advocate for human dignity.’ Rupinder Parhar at the Moroccan Association for Aid to Migrants in Vulnerable Situations, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Rupinder Parhar | In Oujda
The office of the Moroccan Association for Aid to Migrants in Vulnerable Situations is arranged over two floors in a...
lrb.co.uk
‘The only other place I have visited with as dominant a presiding spirit is Disneyland, though even that doesn’t fully capture it. Imagine if Disneyland had been built by Mickey Mouse himself, as a monument to his own maniacal, epoch-defining genius. That’s Bayreuth.’ www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Rosa Lyster · Diary: Among the Wagner Fanatics
To be in or even near Bayreuth is to have Wagner drilled into your consciousness. The festival lasts for a month,...
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On the LRB Podcast, Nicholas Spice joins Thomas Jones to discuss some of the difficulties presented by music: of listening, of maintaining the distance necessary for aesthetic contemplation, of playing and how that differs from performing. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
Ways of Listening
Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 11 November · 1hr 2min
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‘Michael Andrews was not the kind of artist who looks for the sake of looking. His gaze roved, seeking out analogues. Whether he chose to depict partygoers or antipodean mountains or tropical fish or Essex estuary shores, an expressive anxiety was at hand.’ Julian Bell: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Julian Bell · Not-Quite-at-Homeness: Restless Michael Andrews
Michael Andrews did not achieve brand recognition of the kind secured by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, with their...
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‘Legal frameworks leave little room to recognise that desire and arousal may coexist with coercion, deception or a power imbalance that vitiates the conditions for meaningful consent.’ Katie Tobin on Russell Brand, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Katie Tobin | Beyond Consent
Russell Brand has been sentenced to ten years in prison for raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others. For...
lrb.co.uk
‘Where mines are dug up to provide raw materials for energy transition, global climate action conflicts with local environmental protection.’ @petergs.bsky.social on Thea Riafrancos’s 𝘌𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, on our Close Readings subscription podcast. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...
Nature in Crisis: ‘Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism’ by Thea Riofrancos
Podcast Episode · Close Readings · 21 October · 1hr 23min
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‘In July 1942, people on Hokkaidō became aware that a man was rifling through their rubbish bins. This would have been peculiar behaviour under any circumstances, but the man was their prime minister.’ Christopher Harding on Tōjō Hideki. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Christopher Harding · Sometimes a man has to jump: General Tōjō’s Downfall
Early in July 1942, people on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaidō became aware that a man was rifling...
lrb.co.uk
‘For all its hugeness, 𝘋𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳 is a detailed film. Iñárritu has lavished care on the world of his bad satire; in fact he’s a little bit too in love with it.’ Ruby Hamilton at the movies. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ruby Hamilton · At the Movies: ‘Digger’
The last time Tom Cruise played a villain seriously was more than two decades ago, silver-haired and wolfish as a hitman...
lrb.co.uk
Catching up with the LRB on my lunch break. Learning lots of new info about the Imperial Japanese military’s plans for total war with the West: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
‘We should be wary of making prosecution the arbiter of sexual morality, or of imagining that a successful conviction is the fullest measure of accountability available to survivors.’ Katie Tobin on Russell Brand, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Katie Tobin | Beyond Consent
Russell Brand has been sentenced to ten years in prison for raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others. For...
lrb.co.uk
‘The human being that was living in Gaza... she’s missing. They are not in the picture. The people are classified into displaced people, or affected population, or people in need.’ Jaser Abu Mousa in conversation with @adamshatz.bsky.social, on the podcast. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
Gaza and the Forever War
Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 6 November · 1hr 26min
podcasts.apple.com
‘The Moroccan authorities used not to recognise cases of disappearance, arguing that the missing people had left the country of their own free will. That has now changed.’ Rupinder Parhar at the Moroccan Association for Aid to Migrants in Vulnerable Situations: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Rupinder Parhar | In Oujda
The office of the Moroccan Association for Aid to Migrants in Vulnerable Situations is arranged over two floors in a...
lrb.co.uk
‘Park excels at making the audience care about characters who are inarticulate or even inanimate: the pathos of 𝘈 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘢𝘺 𝘖𝘶𝘵 is provided by an abandoned coin-operated gas cooker on the moon.’ Malin Hay on Aardman and animation. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Malin Hay · At the Young V&A: ‘Inside Aardman’
Everything in an Aardman film is at a small scale: there’s a playfulness that nods to its young audience, to the child...
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‘The geographical tension is obvious: much of the UK’s renewable resources lie in the Highlands and Islands, while electricity demand is largely in the south. Generation and transmission infrastructure has to go somewhere.’ @frasermacdonald.bsky.social on green energy. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Fraser MacDonald · Who owns the glen?
Girning about hydro power in Strathglass is a bit like moving to Soho and complaining about the noisy nightlife. This...
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‘At his best, his deranged images and impeccably glazed sentences create a powerful sense of puzzlement or terror without his having to spell it out.’ Edmund Gordon reads M. John Harrison’s Booker-Prize-winning novel 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Edmund Gordon · Uncanny Little Blighter: M. John Harrison’s ‘The End of Everything’
‘What’s the point of an alien artefact you can recognise?’ Harrison asked in Wish I Was Here. ‘As a branch of...
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‘The border is violently policed. To cross it, even by accident, is to risk death. Three years ago, two young Frenchmen of Moroccan heritage who strayed too far east on their jet skis were killed by the Algerian coastguard.’ Rupinder Parhar in Oujda, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Rupinder Parhar | In Oujda
The office of the Moroccan Association for Aid to Migrants in Vulnerable Situations is arranged over two floors in a...
lrb.co.uk
‘It’s a period when institutions are beginning to form around culture. There’s always an eye on the French Academy and the Encyclopédies.’ Rosemary Hill on Georgian London, on our Close Readings subscription podcast. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...
London Revisited: The Age of ‘Improvement’
Podcast Episode · Close Readings · 5 November · 1hr 31min
podcasts.apple.com
‘Tom Cruise’s efforts have made his men the best in the business, whether that business is cocktail-making, pool hustling or piloting a fighter jet. He plays life’s winners, and he’s one of those winners, so why is he always so desperate to please?’ Ruby Hamilton: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ruby Hamilton · At the Movies: ‘Digger’
The last time Tom Cruise played a villain seriously was more than two decades ago, silver-haired and wolfish as a hitman...
lrb.co.uk
‘Though immersed in politics during her first marriage, in her stories she put values where they are to be found in most people’s lives, among choices and refusals that are not ideologically explicit.’ John Kerrigan on Mary Lavin’s short stories. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
John Kerrigan · Zeno’s Tortoise: Mary Lavin sets the scene
Mary Lavin published some of the finest short stories since Joyce, along with two novels, children’s books and a...
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‘Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat with a background in epidemiology and public health who was elected to the Senate by voters in Michigan yesterday, included “Building a Healthier America” as part of his policy agenda.’ Edna Bonhomme (@jacobinoire.bsky.social) on MAHA. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/no...
Edna Bonhomme | Make America Healthy Again
Between 1 May and 31 August, more than twenty thousand laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis were reported to the...
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‘With seventy thousand Palestinians designated as military targets and default collateral damage set at twenty civilians for every low-level operative, “in this way you could kill the entirety of Gaza.”’ Eyal Weizman on Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s 𝘕𝘈𝘡𝘈. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Eyal Weizman · Necro-Economics: Death by Algorithm
Gaza has been experiencing an old-fashioned scorched-earth campaign reminiscent of the Nakba of 1948 and no different...
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As the govt tried to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in ever more punitive ways, Rupinder Parhar @lrb.co.uk on a Moroccan organisation that monitors the cases of people who have disappeared, been detained or died on an earlier leg of the journey: tinyurl.com/yc3at8kw.
Rupinder Parhar | In Oujda
The office of the Moroccan Association for Aid to Migrants in Vulnerable Situations is arranged over two floors in a...
tinyurl.com
A sweet and perceptive essay about Jameson’s ways of reading. I had never thought of the connection before, but you could see Jameson alongside Sontag as two great critics who changed American literary culture in the 1960s by taking Sartre as a new starting point. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Toril Moi · Fredric Jameson as Reader: Fredric the Great
Fredric Jameson seemed to me to have read absolutely everything. He was the very antithesis of the intellectual type I...
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