I’m in this week’s @lrb.co.uk writing about a novel I struggled through twice and am still in large part baffled by www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The crepuscular world of covert operations frustrates any effort to distinguish CIA operatives from uniformed military, drug lords from drug police, clients from enemies, and Zero Units from ISIS.’ @lalehkhalili.bsky.social on the symbiosis of drugs and war. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The barring of so many prominent writers and artists became an embarrassment, particularly because the US liked to claim that the brutal suppression of dissent behind the Iron Curtain showed the superiority of open societies.’ Jameel Jaffer on ideological exclusion. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Trying to weigh up, say, the rival claims of liberty and equality in any particular situation would be like trying to assess the comparative merits of a sunset and a daffodil.’ Seamus Perry’s Winter Lecture, ‘Pluralism and the Modern Poet’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘With the villainous Gore Vidal (said with utmost respect), there was never a falling out because there was never a falling in. He and Updike were never destined to compare notes on lady gardens.’ @jwolcott.bsky.social reads John Updike’s letters. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘District heating supplies a large proportion of Kyiv’s 1600 high-rise blocks. In a cold climate, it’s an efficient way to deliver heating and hot water to a large number of people. But in war the system is horribly vulnerable.’ @jenstout.bsky.social in Kyiv. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The novel denies us solution, catharsis and, for much of its length, comprehension. Yet this is what it must be like for Cristina Rivera Garza, to whom, I suspect, all crime novels are unjustifiably cosy.’ @chrispower.bsky.social reads ‘Death Takes Me’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Works of art are attributed to the few craftsmen whose names we know. The unknown subjects of portraits become the long-lost faces of favoured figures. Crowd-pleasing narratives (some excellent, some less so) fill in the gaps.’ Kate Heard on Tudor art. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Milton rejects trinitarian doctrine in 𝘋𝘦 𝘋𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 explicitly and at length. You could get in real trouble for doing this in Milton’s day.’ Tobias Gregory on the poet’s theology. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘In 1968, Boris Mikhailov began making 𝘙𝘦𝘥, a series which a gallery label tells us “reveals the extent to which communist ideology saturated daily life”. It certainly does that, with blazing red insignia and backdrops everywhere.’ Brian Dillon on the Ukrainian artist. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It was easy to poke fun at Bardot by the end but hard to figure out whether older attitudes towards her – jealousy, envy, misogynistic lust – might not be enjoying a new lease of life in different guises.’ Jeremy Harding on Brigitte Bardot’s legacy. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On our ‘Aftershock’ podcast, a bonus episode from the LRB archives: ‘The War on Terrorism: Is There an Alternative?’, from May 2002, with a panel featuring Tariq Ali, Christopher Hitchens, Jacqueline Rose, Anatol Lieven and Onora O’Neill. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...

I must open my soul – I feel it’s still around me here – but where – I just had it – it might be years – maybe it’s days – I feel I had it just minutes ago – words must tell me where to look ‘You Shall Not Speak’, a poem by @joriegraham.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The character sketch combines a transhistorical type (a kind of person we have all met) with transient historical detail (the people we meet don’t babble about Hermes or Polyperchon, but we still recognise them as belonging to this type).’ Colin Burrow on character. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘A large part of what’s great about 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘈𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵 is Wagner Moura, who inhabits his role with the naturalism of a documentary subject and the charisma of a star. He plays two roles, the second of which I won’t reveal.’ Gaby Wood at the movies. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It’s often hard to tell whether or to what degree bodies were decomposed before they were acted on, and harder still to deduce much about the beliefs that prompted the intervention.’ @mikejay.bsky.social on vampires, revenants and killing the dead. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Can anyone really believe today that the denial of visas to foreigners with supposedly dangerous beliefs will have the effect of keeping those beliefs at bay?’ @jameeljaffer.bsky.social on ideological exclusion at the US border. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The Palestine Action ruling is another warning against always taking the government at its word.’ @daniellalock.bsky.social on the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

I enjoyed the discussion of temporality and attachment in Nagel’s review of Scheffler’s ONE LIFE TO LEAD (Oxford, 2025) in the @lrb.co.uk. These passages on grief were especially good. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘To know something about the physical world, you could use maths to model it. But more radically, you could also use the physical world to open up and model mathematical ideas.’ Claire Hall on what makes Archimedes so interesting. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Military service is one of the strongest predictors for becoming a mass shooter in the US.’ @lalehkhalili.bsky.social on the symbiosis of drugs and war. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Isaiah Berlin’s pluralism, edged with tragic feeling, is utterly unlike the ebullient multifariousness of James’s universe: pluralism, for all its anti-monistic virtues, has become a problem.’ Seamus Perry’s Winter Lecture, ‘Pluralism and the Modern Poet’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘In a country as unequal as Romania, AUR’s promises of cheap housing and squeezing money for ordinary Romanians out of foreign firms is more likely to be a draw for voters than a fondness for Putin or dead fascists.’ @jamesmeek.bsky.social reports from Bucharest. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The infrastructure of posts and couriers that served states and merchants laid the foundations for a revolution in communications.’ @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social on early modern news. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Updike’s reduction of women to receptacles, landing strips and entrapment devices is a compulsive tic as identifying as Vidal’s rictus sneer.’ @jwolcott.bsky.social reconsiders John Updike. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Milton saw theology as a collective endeavour. Every believer has the right and obligation to work out the truths of Christian religion for themselves, but they should refine and test these beliefs in dialogue with fellow believers.’ Tobias Gregory on the poet’s faith www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It's almost impossible, knowing what we know now, to not say that Global Counsel was a vehicle for Peter Mandelson to try and realise financially his political connections.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on Mandelson and Epstein, on the podcast. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

‘Being liberated – a word often used about her – was not the same as being “free”. Or indeed the same as being “natural”, another term for her command performance of “emancipation”.’ Jeremy Harding on Brigitte Bardot. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It is not a historical accident that the character sketch flourished during the English Civil War. It can help us to identify bad types of behaviour, but it can also flatten and polarise perceptions of other people.’ Colin Burrow on a defence of character sketches. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Too often we treat national security assessments as solemn expressions of a neutral truth by the elected guardians of the people. Yet the case of Peter Mandelson shows just how lopsided and politically motivated those assessments can be.’ @daniellalock.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

‘In late December, as demonstrations swelled across Iran, I was frantically trying to get in touch with my family when a friend returning from the protests wrote to me: “We are full of hope. There is no going back.”’ By @taraaghdashloo.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Once they rivered everywhere – meanders – currents – you must let me speak words – do not bark at me – my sounds come slowly – no they are not answers – they are cries – how long have you been human ‘You Shall Not Speak’, a poem by @joriegraham.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It’s understandable that the dead should be angry or vengeful: after all, they have suffered a terrible calamity.’ @mikejay.bsky.social on vampires, revenants and the vengeful dead. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Rather than recreating a replica of the past Mendonça wanted to evoke the period’s “fumes”. That goes some way towards explaining what it feels like to watch the result: you’re inhaling an atmosphere, smelling a memory.’ Gaby Wood watches ‘The Secret Agent’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Both Democrats and Republicans helped create the infrastructure for ideological surveillance at the US border, but the Trump administration is deploying it in the service of a radically partisan and censorial agenda.’ @jameeljaffer.bsky.social on dangerous ideas. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On our ‘Aftershock’ podcast, a bonus episode from the LRB archives: ‘The War on Terrorism: Is There an Alternative?’, from May 2002, with a panel featuring Tariq Ali, Christopher Hitchens, Jacqueline Rose, Anatol Lieven and Onora O’Neill. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/f...

Huw Lemmey in a blistering piece written last year: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Soldiers at Fort Bragg and another special forces base, Fort Campbell, are more likely to die of drug overdoses than the average US citizen. Dependency on narcotics isn’t the only after-effect of war.’ @lalehkhalili.bsky.social on the symbiosis of drugs and war. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The destruction of thermal power plants, as well as substations and the distribution network, which has taken place throughout this winter has now coincided with the coldest weather Ukraine has had in years, with temperatures dropping below -20ºC.’ Jen Stout in Kyiv. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘France prefers to honour her as a peerless beauty, a box office godsend and a champion of animal rights, but her militant nativism is the legacy that Le Pen’s people will carry forward into the 2027 presidential race.’ Jeremy Harding on Brigitte Bardot. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The visual world of the Tudor period is also largely vanished, swept away in those “great alterations”, or for more mundane reasons: eaten by mice; burned in accidental fires; discarded due to wear or changes in fashion.’ Kate Heard on Tudor art. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘He carried on taking pictures as a mordant and playful artist of the clandestine Ukrainian avant-garde. He recorded hardships, absurdities and mundane ecstasies in the period following Khrushchev’s Thaw.’ @briangdillon.bsky.social on Boris Mikhailov. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘For Nicastro, Archimedes was a true scientist who wouldn’t have been caught dead endorsing the “quaint beliefs” held by other Greeks: that circles are the most perfect shape, or that objects fall to earth seeking their proper place.’ Claire Hall on a new biography. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The use of the future tense suggests that justice starts now, but it could have started, at a minimum, with refusing to consider Mandelson for the post in the first place. Starmer did “look away”.’ @rachelmalik.bsky.social on Starmer’s apology to Epstein’s victims. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

‘Couriers communicated gossip, rumour and political intelligence between cities and states, labourers in a vast information infrastructure that worked across languages and borders.’ @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social on early modern news. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Stella, and other poor Romanians, are motivated by personal and family matters. Why am I so heavily taxed, when teachers, doctors and police have so little time for me and my children? How can I feed and clothe my kids and pay the rent?’ @jamesmeek.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Updike’s misogyny wasn’t as muscular as Mailer’s, or maniacal, as in the case of Roth’s anti-heroes swinging from vine to vine, but when it seeps out it leaves a stain tough to remove because it’s phrased with such lapidary care.’ @jwolcott.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Next Wednesday, journalist, novelist and 𝘓𝘙𝘉 contributing editor @jamesmeek.bsky.social will be at the @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk to discuss his latest novel, 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘔𝘦, with Lara Pawson. Tickets here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/james-meek...

‘I can't think of a more democratically damaging story, especially in the context of the global rise of the radical right, where people are saying to you, the system is broken – it's rigged for an elite.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on Mandelson, on the podcast. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

‘In every human culture, burial is hedged about with ritual observance. Yet in certain historical moments the threat of the dangerous dead has flared up into a desperate and persistent conflict with the living.’ @mikejay.bsky.social on vampires and revenants. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...