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Tag Archives: books

News At A Glance #15

On Georgia(n)s, music, and the state of education. — For The Emigre

On Uncertain Ground

In which I, ASH Smyth, High Anglican atheist, descendant of Huguenots, dissenters, Presbyterians, Church of Ireland types, and maybe even Quakers, make my Catholic press debut, on Phil Klay’s Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. — For The Catholic Herald

Pyramid schemes

The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids Pierre Tallet and Mark Lehner Thames & Hudson £30 319pp (1.216kg) . Because I once made the mistake of dabbling a bit in Egyptology, no less than every other week – in the year 2022 – some friend (‘…’) will schwack me […]

Insecurities fraud

Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy by Symeon Brown, Atlantic Books, £16.99 . Born when we were born, and embarking on writing ‘careers’ (LOL) just as the web ripped the financial guts out of the paper industry, my idea of a good time is to phone my best […]

Late-teen condenses Seamus Heaney

war/conflict/Troubles land modern history of Ireland personal identity religion rural landscape vs industrialisation loyalty to roots vs leaving silence vs talking place language: Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, English farming vs academia invasion (poignant) .

A little less conservation…?

Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World by Emma Marris Bloomsbury £20 (hardback) . Stepping slightly sideways from where she left off in Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, Emma Marris now turns her attention to a series of ‘exercises in practical philosophy’ on the ethics of humans versus(?) wild animals. From […]

MILFs & Boon

Or; in the kitchen with my best mate’s mum . About mid-February last year, we were sitting around one afternoon, exchanging the usual disenchantments on the subject of St Valentine’s Day, when my best mate’s mum casually dropped into conversation the fact that in her younger days she once co-wrote a book for Mills & […]

Beneath the mountains

Review of Alexandria: the Quest for the Lost City, by Edmund Richardson. — For The Spectator

(Re)building a library

Confessions of a bibliomaniac in the South Atlantic. — For The Critic

In-line, online, and where to draw the line?

Notes on Colombo’s books and bookmen in the time of Covid-19. — For The Critic