‘Formal Palestinian statehood implies transparency and legal accountability. It is a radical inversion of the fear-driven dynamic that Netanyahu exploits.’ New on the blog from Leila Sansour: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘The work is always slipping from your grasp. It shrinks from recognition, now more than ever. It is almost unapproachable as art, written in a language and an alphabet only distantly recognisable as English.’ @tomlukejohnson.bsky.social on the Pearl Manuscript: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Whenever I’m asked about Brian Eno these days, I always say: he had one of the most brilliant first decades anyone has ever had in rock music; and then something happened and I flipped from convinced Enophile to curmudgeonly Enosceptic.’ Ian Penman: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Denouncing “terrorists” under George W. Bush in the 2000s is one thing (though don’t take that as a personal endorsement), but denouncing “communists” under Truman or Eisenhower in the 1950s might seem more dubious.’ Sheila Fitzpatrick on snitching: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘A song about alienation was a bold choice for a debut pop single. Nobody at the turn of the millennium was asking for dark psychedelic mainstream pop.’ Mendez on the Sugababes, at Margate’s Dreamland: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘Anger that wasn’t represented democratically would have to go somewhere, and it seems clear now that it was pushed underground.’ @will-davies.bsky.social on how the political scene in the 1990s sowed the seeds for Trumpism: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘She and Toklas lived between two worlds – the official avant-garde world of Hemingway and Picasso, and the unofficial lesbian avant-garde of Natalie Barney and Janet Flanner and Ethel Mars and Maud Hunt Squire.’ Adam Thirlwell on Gertrude Stein: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The Birmingham reviewers, having talked to all the doctors involved in Martha’s treatment, said that only one of them spoke about her as a person.’ @paullaity.bsky.social on the search for accountability after his daughter’s preventable death in hospital: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Ben Pester’s satirical and surreal scrutiny pushes the concept of the “work-life balance” to its limit.’ Emily Berry on Pester’s absurd fictions: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Adam Tooze on Electrostates, Petrostates & the New Cold War Announcing the first LRB Autumn Lecture in New York, a complement to our Winter Lecture series in London. 27 October 2025 The New School, NYC Details and tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/autumn-lec...

‘Elmore Leonard’s “ten rules” provide an insight into the creative process of a stylist who exhibited the kind of sentence-level mastery you rarely see paired with the nuts-and-bolts rudiments of plot and action.’ J. Robert Lennon on the crime writer: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

flock of flamingos balanced on slender stemware or mad flight of hats, magenta origami, by Schiaparelli, above ground, you stand poised as flames on candlewicks, but under earth I know you’re a heavy dark mass “Autumn Cyclamen’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Less than 3 per cent of the very rich in Edwardian Britain (those leaving estates of more than £100,000) were Jews, but attacks on the “new plutocracy” were often antisemitic in nature.’ Abigail Green on John Singer Sargent’s portraits of the Wertheimer family: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The Gen Z that took to the streets are from a substantial urban underclass, many of them new migrants to the city. The online Gen Z are tech-savvy, largely middle-class and fluent in Reddit memes.’ Shubhanga Pandey on protest and regime change in Nepal, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘Any book made by hand is unique, but the Pearl Manuscript’s claim to uniqueness is unparalleled: the manuscript appears never to have been copied or circulated, nor to have been known to anybody except the people who owned it.’ @tomlukejohnson.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Benn’s solution to Britain’s inequalities and lack of political transparency was to give more power to the people. His unusually strong faith in the voters was partly a product of the 1960s.’ Andy Beckett on Tony Benn: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Rachael Ruysch’s pyramidal bouquets often require some suspension of disbelief. The vases never seem large enough for the splendid, voluminous arrangements that loom over them.’ Clare Bucknell on the Dutch painter’s still lifes: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘More than half of Reform’s donations in 2024 came from people with homes in low-tax jurisdictions or with offshore business interests; 40 per cent came from climate sceptics or investors in fossil fuels.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social at the Reform UK conference: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The biggest target, apart from criticism of the Ukraine war, is gay and trans activism. Both have been criminalised, so here denunciation can cause more than reputational damage.’ Sheila Fitzpatrick on snitching, in Russia and elsewhere: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Ross Perot didn’t need to resort to violent or counter-revolutionary rhetoric in order to serve as a vessel for political alienation and rage. Not being a “politician” was enough.’ @will-davies.bsky.social on the political legacy of the 1990s: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Although the museum’s holdings have nearly doubled in the decades since its opening (partly through purchases but mainly through gifts), few public collections are so imbued with the taste and personality of a single individual.’ Elizabeth Goldring at the Frick: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It was a closed case, another preventable death: medicine is imperfect, such things happen. I couldn’t accept that. Looking back, I was setting the immeasurable private horror of my daughter’s death against its tangible bureaucratic result.’ Paul Laity on Martha Mills www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Heartbreaking, from Paul Laity. "'To be honest,’ the Birmingham investigators had told us, ‘we are coming to the end of this review with complete shame for our profession.’" www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘There has always been something slightly unknowable and fugitive about Sugababes. One minute they seem to be inactive – Mutya performing solo gigs, Keisha living in Canada – the next they’re surprise-releasing singles.’ Mendez on the Sugababes in Margate: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

No algorithm or software would ever have come up with the glorious car-smash of the Velvet Underground or Roxy Music. The kind of happenstance alchemy that can never be programmed: a crack in a voice, an offbeat, disturbed air.’ Ian Penman on Brian Eno: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘In creating a myth of modernism, Stein did something delirious to the myth the modernists had so far preferred.’ Adam Thirlwell on Francesca Wade’s biography of Gertrude Stein: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The mundane details that unfold could be lifted from any stressed father’s morning routine: train station croissants, a frantic scroll through unread emails. But it’s within the mundane that Ben Pester lodges (or dislodges) the strangest things.’ Emily Berry: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Don’t be the proud girl brought low – that’s the lesson. Come, teach me another: the root, round anchor of buoyant exuberance. ‘Autumn Cyclamen’, a new poem by @aestallings.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘When, on 8 September, ‘Gen Z’ packed the streets of the government district in Kathmandu, no more was expected than a larger variation of previous demonstrations against corruption and kleptocracy in Nepal.’ Shubhanga Pandey on Nepal’s regime change via Discord: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘Elmore Leonard is often praised as a virtuoso of naturalistic dialogue, its rhythms and characteristic illogic (my favourite bit in this book is a flirtatious yogism – Berra, not Buddha – of Stick’s: “You’re from somewhere, aren’t you? Let me guess”).’ J. Robert Lennon www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The family’s German-Jewish name and foreign origins hardly recommended them to a public prone to anti-German rioting and gripped by the cataclysm of the Somme.’ Abigail Green on John Singer Sargent’s relationship with the Wetheimers: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The Pearl Manuscript makes disciples of those who do discover it. Revisiting the poems, I found myself ensnared again by the language and frustrated by the impossibility of conveying their strange beauty.’ @tomlukejohnson.bsky.social on the medieval Pearl Manuscript: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘A balancing act composed of flowers – lightweight, long-stemmed, delicate – is one thing; putting a pineapple in there is another. How would the fruit not topple the whole thing over?’ Clare Buckenll on 18th-century Dutch painter Rachel Ruysch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Sugababes, the sound of young millennial London with roots in dancehall, R&B and UK garage, nodded their heads to the beat, showing that they were about the music, not a superficial pop confection; they were in it for the long run.’ Mendez on the Sugababes in Margate: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘The narrative voice is always distinctively his, but he borrows just enough of the syntactic peculiarity of his characters’ minds to allow the author to step aside and let each actor take the stage.’ J. Robert Lennon on a series of Elmore Leonard reissues: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Since 2015, the leaders of three supposedly rival parties have taken it in turns to be prime minister two or three times each. The last ten years have been dotted by constitutional crises and corruption scandals of expanding scale.’ Shubhanga Pandey on Nepal’s Gen Zs: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘It’s hard to imagine someone like Benn surviving for long in Labour now, when a single vote against the government in the Commons can lead to suspension from the party.’ Andy Beckett on Tony Benn: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It would be nice if we could distinguish between denunciations on the basis of motive, but that seems hopeless. Most denunciations are couched in public interest terms, motives are generally mixed, only God can see into the heart etc.’ Sheila Fitzpatrick on snitching: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘I realised what patient safety campaigners have wearily reiterated for years: hospital scandals lead to inquiries, which lead to reports that produce a set of recommendations, which are ignored or not implemented.’ Paul Laity on his daughter’s preventable death: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A LRB essay on Elmore Leonard by @jrobertlennon.com? YES please

‘That Reform’s initial incarnation, the Brexit Party, topped the polls in the 2019 European elections – with the Conservatives winning less than a tenth of the vote – no longer looks like an aberration.’ @petergeoghegan.bsky.social at the Reform UK conference: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘These reactionaries may be contemptible, even at times laughable, but they were deadly serious. And perhaps they understood the stakes of politics more clearly than the “Third Way” liberals who for a time would consign them to the margins.’ William Davies on the 1990s www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘I think Stein was right. All art emerges from conditions of intimacy and privacy and private jokes.’ Adam Thirlwell on Gertrude Stein: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Girl bands have been seen, by the gatekeepers of the male rock canon, as disposable, faddish and unserious, their talent dismissed if they don’t write their own songs or play instruments.’ Mendez on the Sugababes at Margate’s Dreamland, new on the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘Even the loop of string that secures the branches in an early hanging arrangement is elegant: not many artists can make string look this good.’ Clare Bucknell on the 18th century painter Rachel Ruysch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘The Gen Z that took to the streets are from a substantial urban underclass, many of them new migrants to the city. The online Gen Z are tech-savvy, largely middle-class and fluent in Reddit memes.’ Shubhanga Pandey on protest and regime change in Nepal, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

‘A white man who wrote almost exclusively about criminals isn’t who most readers would go to for a nuanced portrayal of Black Americans’ inner lives, but Elmore Leonard was expert at showing the way racial and cultural dynamics change the calculus.’ J. Robert Lennon: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Architectural features – ranging from decorative marble and plasterwork to wood panelling and carvings – have been restored by specialist craftsmen. Period textiles and upholstery have been painstakingly recreated.’ Elizabeth Goldring at the Frick Collection: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘It’s from the same school of dark – let’s call it beyond the pale – humour as TV programmes such as The League of Gentlemen. English niceties become a coffin lid that creaks open to reveal something horrifying.’ Emily Berry on Ben Pester’s surreal fiction: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘“Reform does the best parties,” Lee told me. He used to vote Conservative but “never Ukip”. So why Reform? “Immigration. It’s out of control.” He was heading to his first fringe event of the day, on “securing the borders”.’ Peter Geoghegan at Reform UK’s conference: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...