‘Ptolemy V was styled a god – he was called the “Manifest One” – but he was all too mortal. His coronation in 196 BCE, celebrated on the Rosetta Stone, was an effort to put a good face on a bad situation.’ Robert Cioffi on the achievements of the Ptolemaic dynasty. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘A man who killed another man for no reason is convicted for the wrong reason. How could this happen? In their way, the novel and François Ozon’s film both invite another question: how could it not?’ Michael Wood watches 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Popes and bishops were forced to tolerate the intricate variety of the Baltic: they reluctantly countenanced Lithuanian cremation ceremonies and agreed to the equivalent of a preservation order on sacred forests.’ Diarmaid MacCulloch on the decline of ‘paganism’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘I saw Richter weaving through the crowd that had formed before the stage, heading for the back of the room, to watch us watching his performance. He moved like a ghost, unbothered by his audience who couldn’t, shouldn’t notice him.’ Rose Dodd at Max Richter’s 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘Though the US is thought to have provided more than $130 billion to the Afghan state between 2002 and 2021, most of it went straight to security forces and much of the rest was siphoned off to accounts in the Gulf and Switzerland.’ @tomstevenson.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The coverage of "hate marches" in the UK has been almost entirely about those in solidarity with Palestine This is compared to euphemisms used to describe increasingly emboldened fascist and their billionaire enablers Excellent from @desfreedman.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘As Muhammad stood there, leaning on his crutches, I didn’t know where to look. At the place where his leg used to be? At his face? Should I pretend nothing had changed?’ Hassan Ayman Herzallah plays beach volleyball in Gaza, new on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘Refusing help to a friend who has betrayed us does not entail an assumption that he is ultimately responsible for his character. It is just a natural consequence of his destruction of our friendship.’ Thomas Nagel on T.M. Scanlon’s moral philosophy. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘By the middle of the 16th century, something like 112,000 cloths, or 2.5 million yards of woollen cloth, are passing through London.’ Vanessa Harding joins Rosemary Hill on our Close Readings subscription podcast. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

This place was never yours, they’ll say, though years from now as she steps from factory floor to city street, the winter haar pouring in, muting the world, effacing everything, it’s here that she’ll be A poem by @tarnnation.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Like England, Greater Manchester has its richer south, the Cheshire fringes where the superstar footballers live, its main city of hedonism and sky-high rents, and its decapitalised northern towns.’ @jamesmeek.bsky.social on Andy Burnham’s Manchester, from 2024. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Far beyond the powers of national authorities to control. That is a truly astonishing state of affairs. The fact is that a great deal is being done to combat it. It’s just that none of it works.’ John Lanchester on money laundering. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Only 5 per cent of people who voted Labour in the 2024 general election directly transferred their allegiance to Reform in 2025. Nearly a third of those Labour voters simply stayed away.’ James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on May’s elections. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It’s​ a sorry situation when the most repeated fact about someone’s life is that a famous person was best man at their wedding. Dylan Thomas did the honours for Lynette Roberts.’ Emily Berry on the Welsh modernist poet. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘He gained admission to the New School by showing the dean his poetry, befriended Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, supposedly knocked out Anatole Broyard during a bar fight.’ Alex Cocotas remembers the producer, cinematographer and screenwriter Harrison Starr. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Nearly 10 years since Tom Crewe's @lrb.co.uk piece on The Strange Death of Municipal England. Time for a re-read? www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

It is expensive, for something left behind. Gold looks for it again, from its little rings And fingers. Was it live once, did it have Running blood, did it pump, was it a transfusion? ‘Rosarita’, a poem by @tricialockwood.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The girl to my right fell asleep. The Frenchman to my left got out his phone and started to scroll silently on TikTok. A group formed towards the front of the hall. Some sat on the floor watching the stage; others danced, read, wrote.’ Rose Dodd on Max Richter’s 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘Amie Barrodale’s first novel, 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘱, is about consciousness, karma and retribution, but it’s also silly and your enjoyment of it may depend on your tolerance for this (mine is medium to high).’ Nicole Flattery: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On our Close Readings subscription podcast: Rosemary Hill and Vanessa Harding, emerita professor of London history, look at London’s transformation into a commercially expanding and ideological contested Protestant capital under the Tudors. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

‘Many former officials were forced to sell family heirlooms to outsiders to make ends meet, and to comply with laws such as the Haitō edict, which prohibited the carrying of swords in public.’ Ben Walker on the stories behind a samurai suit. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Voisin doesn’t fret or frown; his almost handsome face has no expression. He enjoys the world sometimes, hates it mostly, but none of this is to be seen. Well, we see that we don’t see it. This is a movie.’ Michael Wood watches François Ozon’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The book resembles a tired music-hall act, though it takes a Beckett to drain all the obvious vitality out of a vaudeville routine while leaving it with the ghost of a snap.’ Adam Mars-Jones reads George Saunders’ new novel 𝘝𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘭. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Ptolemy VIII wanted to be named Benefactor, but the Alexandrians called him Malefactor and Potbelly. Both were accurate.’ Robert Cioffi on the Ptolemaic dynasty. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Such was Æthelstan’s stature that leading Continental families sought (and gained) alliance with him, establishing an unprecedented network of foster-sons and in-laws, from Scandinavia to the Alps.’ Nicholas Higham on England’s first kings. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Terrific road-trip article by James Lasdun in LRB. He drove across the USA, dropping in on random court hearings as a public observer, collecting snapshots of America's justice system and people caught up in it. Loved reading this. Makes me want to do the same. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘For the audience 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 is a lullaby; for the musicians it’s an extreme sport. “It’s physically very demanding,” Richter told me. “You have to prepare for it and manage your energy. I jet-lag myself in the days beforehand.”’ Rose Dodd at 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 in Alexandra Palace. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘In contrast to near uniformity of race and status among enslaved people in the Atlantic trade, the category of slave in Muslim contexts encompassed a bewildering variety of ethnic backgrounds and social positions.’ Youssef Ben Ismail on slavery in the Islamic world. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Marlen Haushofer’s characters go wrong when they abandon their animal instincts in favour of social convention. In the “round integral world” of youth, there is an easy continuity between the human, the animal and the inanimate.’ Becca Rothfeld on the novelist. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Despite regular demonstrations of bigotry on the world’s streets, more than 99 per cent of stories that mention “hate marches” have been published since 7 October 2023 and have focused on anti-racist protesters.’ @desfreedman.bsky.social on so-called ‘hate marches’. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘What is unreasonable is a matter of judgment: this is not a mechanical decision procedure, but an account of what we need to think about in thinking about moral questions.’ Thomas Nagel on T.M. Scanlon’s moral philosophy. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘To be European was to be Christian, yet Christendom was not and is not identical with Christianity as a world faith.’ Diarmaid MacCulloch on pre-Christian religious practice. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Please go and have a read of a new poem I wrote after visiting and researching the township of Aoineadh Mòr in Lochaber. The narrative is based on a true story of a woman whose family were evicted during the Clearances and settled in Edinburgh.

‘Afghanistan became the forever war. By the time it ended in 2021 at least 175,000 people had been killed, not counting the far larger number of deaths caused indirectly by disease and malnutrition.’ @tomstevenson.bsky.social on America’s failures in Afghanistan. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Although they are inclined to groupthink, self-importance, vengefulness, incuriosity and conformism, Labour politicians are not terminally stupid. Many are acutely aware that their seats are at risk.’ James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on the local elections. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

In the distant halls of power wealth flows from afar, accumulates like sediment as laws are passed, maps redrawn, hierarchies maintained. To buy or sell a person is illegal. To buy or sell the place that they call home is sound investment A poem by Tarn MacArthur. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Money laundering is a little like drug cheating in sport, where the current state of legal enforcement always lags behind the current state of malfeasance.’ John Lanchester in the new issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘For several generations, the nascent English state was only a defeat away from disintegration, and that was the preferred outcome among many sections of the nobility. Partition was a normal means of managing inheritance.’ Nicholas Higham on England’s early kings. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Circumstantial evidence (defective internal logic, uncontrolled tone, bizarreness for its own sake) suggests that 𝘝𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘭 is an attempt at a comic novel by someone without much of a sense of humour.’ Adam Mars-Jones reads George Saunders’ new novel. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘For most people the dangers of going on a cruise are much milder: respiratory conditions or gastrointestinal ailments such as norovirus. Cruise operators are understandably defensive about their hygiene and safety protocols.’ Liam Shaw on the hantavirus outbreak. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

‘The last sentence he ever said to Henry Miller was “Fuck you, Henry.” He once owned a painting that Lee Krasner had smashed over Jackson Pollock’s head.’ Alex Cocotas remembers the producer, cinematographer and screenwriter Harrison Starr. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘A powerful Ottoman vizier with slaves of his own and a labourer on a date plantation in Zanzibar could both technically be described as “slaves”, but had little else in common.’ Youssef Ben Ismail on an account of slavery in the Islamic world. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘭 is at once a pastoral and a work of horror, an uneasy synthesis of the two genres Marlen Haushofer mastered over the course of her career. Some passages echo her lush accounts of childhood, nostalgic enchantments recalling her own upbringing.’ Becca Rothfeld: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Scanlon is certainly right that it is because humans can respond to reasons that we hold them, but not tigers, responsible. We differ, I suspect, in our views of what it is to respond to reasons.’ Thomas Nagel on T.M. Scanlon’s moral philosophy. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The Taliban had roots in Afghan society: it was never going to be excluded from the country’s future. “Withdrawal without winning” was the probable result.’ @tomstevenson.bsky.social on America’s forever war. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘How does the hero shift so quickly from tenderness to hatred? How can he have recognised so late in life that the world is tender and indifferent? Is it? The novel doesn’t answer these questions; neither do the films.’ Michael Wood on François Ozon’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The slither of snakes, the susurration of sacred trees, venerated lakes and much else prompt us to revisit the identity of Europe and its worldwide dispersal through migration and territorial empires.’ Diarmaid MacCulloch on pre-Christian religious practice. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Freeports and bonded warehouses, free-trade zones and forged bills of lading, under-invoicing and over-invoicing: all these things provide opportunities to camouflage the flow of illicit money.’ John Lanchester on money laundering. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘If, as Labour has started to suggest, Starmer’s government really is the most progressive in forty years, that is more a verdict on its predecessors than any blazon of radicalism.’ James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on the local elections. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...