Page 8 - John Lanchester News Today

I May Be Backroom Boys, charting the overlooked achievements of British scientists; the “strangely noveloid” Red Plenty, about postwar Soviet economics; and Unapologetic, his lively apologia for religion and riposte to the “new atheism” of Richard Dawkins and co. If such an eclectic writer could be said to have a niche, it was to make nerdishness interesting. Then at 52 he published Golden Hill, a glittering take on the 18th-century novel, set in New York, which was the ...

“She was a narcissist who described herself beautifully.” The description of the mid 20th-century novelist Jean Rhys doesn’t apply to the author who wrote it, even if, in style and sentiment, it epitomises the publication in which it appeared – sly, aphoristic and unapologetically imperious. Mary-Kay Wilmers published her first piece for the London Review of Books in 1981, two years after joining the “paper” as an editor and 11 years before she became the editor-in-chief. (She is...

1. Black Monday Black Monday: a cocaine-fulled rollercoaster in which everyone is double-crossing everyone else. Photograph: 2018 Showtime Don Cheadle turning charm and smarm up to 100. Regina Hall in blue eyeshadow and big 80s hair. Tony-award winning Andrew Rannells adding another besuited straight-edger to his acting credits, along with The Book of Mormon’s Elder Price – at least at first. Black Monday, in this series, refers to 19 October 1987, still the single worst day for America’s...

7 Climate Change Novels That Imagine Our Possible Futures Share Image: Hitoshi Suzuki/Unsplash, FAL To sign up for our daily newsletter covering the latest news, features and reviews, head HERE. For a running feed of all our stories, follow us on Twitter HERE. Or you can bookmark the Gizmodo Australia homepage to visit whenever you need a news fix. Every day brings fresh and ever more alarming news about the state of the global environment. To speak of mere “climate change” is inadequate no...

by TheartsdeskThursday, 31 December 2020 Gabrielle Dickson Stuck in our homes for most of this year, we found comfort and escape from books in ways unprecedented in 2020. The chance to dwell in alternative spaces, or inhabit different rhythms of living. Stuck in our homes for most of this year, we found comfort and escape from books in ways unprecedented in 2020. The chance to dwell in alternative spaces, or inhabit different rhythms of living. Despite challenges for publishers to kee...

I t is 1972.  I am 27. My friend Dusty Wesker, wife of Arnold Wesker who is great mate of my then husband Tom, thrusts an Evening Standard at me announcing a competition they are running whereby the prize is to be the paper’s restaurant critic. With one or maybe even both of my two small daughters – the younger only a few months old – in my arms or round my feet I am thinking I probably shouldn’t be considering a job, but grievously I miss working, having been a copywriter at JWT and a...