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London Review of Books

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The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of politics, literature, history and ideas, published every fortnight. Read: https://lrb.co.uk Listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-lrb-podcast/id510327102 Subscribe: https://mylrb.co.uk/TWQU0725

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 7d

Issue 47.18 is now online, featuring:

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Pico della Mirandola
Conor Gearty on human rights and the law
Thomas Laqueur on the cello
Jessica Olin on Amanda Knox
Colin Burrow on Muriel Spark
and David Runciman on the road to Brexit.

Read online at www.lrb.co.uk

Reposted by London Review of Books

Andy Neather @hernehillandy.bsky.social · 2h

Good in @lrb.co.uk on the ludicrous Riyadh Comedy Festival: that’s right, no jokes about bone saws, beheadings, slavery or venal, misogynistic royal parasites allowed www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Malin Hay | Laughing Their Heads Off

If there’s anything ironic about being so scared of telling the wrong joke that you run straight into the arms of the...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1h

in the beginning
they told a story about glaciers
& granite and later glass
and grottos and gone now
the volcanic surge coring
the apple the earth

‘Clearing’, a poem by Maureen N. McLane: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Maureen N. McLane · Poem: ‘Clearing’

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 2h

‘The denial of essential services is inextricably linked to the denial of political rights. The Trump-Blair plan for Gaza, which continues to deny both, is colonialism by another name.’

Anne Irfan on British involvement in Palestine, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Anne Irfan | Balfour to Blair

By endorsing the Trump plan, Keir Starmer continues the long-standing British position of denying the Palestinian people...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 2h

‘If the first rungs of Pico della Mirandola’s ladder to mystical self-annihilation were fairly typical – moral philosophy, dialectic – the last rungs were subjective, arts cultivated for the abolition of the self.’

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the Italian philosopher: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Erin Maglaque · Thishereness: Pico in Purgatory

Pico’s Oration contravenes the very idea of human possibility that we think the Renaissance is about – yet we think...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 3h

‘If there’s anything ironic about being so scared of telling the wrong joke that you run straight into the arms of the House of Saud, it seems lost on the festival performers.’

Malin Hay on the Riyadh Comedy Festival, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Malin Hay | Laughing Their Heads Off

If there’s anything ironic about being so scared of telling the wrong joke that you run straight into the arms of the...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 4h

‘Brexit is currently as unpopular as it has ever been: barely a third of the public still believes it was a good idea. Meanwhile the man who has been most closely associated with the cause of getting Britain out of Europe looks like he could be our next prime minister.’
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

David Runciman · Down the Rabbit Hole: Britain’s Europe Problem

From Macmillan to Wilson to Heath to Thatcher to Major to Blair to Cameron, a succession of prime ministers persuaded...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 5h

‘Ebbutt’s guarded optimism was never naive. He believed he had sure instincts about what made Germany tick. But the benefits of his long years in Germany were more concrete than that.’

Patrick Cockburn on a journalist expelled from Germany for exposing the Nazi threat www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Patrick Cockburn · Diary: Interviewing Hitler

In August 1937, three German journalists were expelled from Britain for suspected espionage. Retaliation was a...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 6h

‘The plot of “The Comforters” sits on that Sparky boundary between madness and conspiracy and religious transcendence and comedy – a zone that Spark was able to make fully her own over the next three decades because she had lived in it herself.’

Colin Burrow: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Colin Burrow · World-Beating Buster-Upper: Muriel Spark’s Wickedness

The characteristic flavour of Spark’s writing was that of a Catholic ironist, for whom the terrible and the laughable...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 6h

‘None of this is being done in secret – the judgments are public – but the changes have barely registered. Judges, whether serving or retired, tend not to speak out. Barristers know on which side their bread is buttered.’

Conor Gearty on the Human Rights Act: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Conor Gearty · Unwelcome Remnant: Erasing the Human Rights Act

The Supreme Court is quietly editing the Human Rights Act out of existence. In cases where human rights cannot be...

Reposted by London Review of Books

James Vincent @jjvincent.bsky.social · 12h

brilliant piece on prion diseases. i hadn't realized that the discovery of the link between prions and neurodegenerative disorders was so recent.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Stephen Buranyi · Folding and Unfolding: Protein to Prion

How and why do proteins, which are produced by our body to build structures (such as skin and muscle) or carry out tasks...

Reposted by London Review of Books

Deborah Friedell @deborahfriedell.bsky.social · 8h

I love the @lrb.co.uk “Close Readings” podcast, so it was a total treat to do this episode with @moonjets.bsky.social & Colm Tóibín on Henry James -- even if Colm remains inexplicably blind to the charms of Lord Warburton & his moat. www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

Podcast: Colm Tóibín, Deborah Friedell and Thomas Jones · Novel Approaches: ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ by Henry James

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 7h

The 𝘓𝘙𝘉 published many of Tony Harrison’s poems over the years, including, most famously, ‘v.’ To mark forty years of the poem, and in tribute to its author, live readings will take place in Holbeck on Sunday 12 Oct, in association with Slung Low. More info/tickets: www.slunglow.org/v-a-homecomi...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 8h

‘𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦 arrives at a moment of reckoning, as writers reappraise the sleazy wreckage of the 2000s. (So much has changed for women in the public eye since Knox’s arrest in 2007, and so much hasn’t.)’

Jessica Olin on the Amanda Knox industrial complex: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jessica Olin · In the Multiverse: What Knox did next

A proud sci-fi and fantasy nerd, Amanda Knox inhabits the multiverse. She ‘fantasises about moving to a remote village...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 8h

‘Atkinson’s ethos is cheeringly democratic. Most of Cafe Royal’s books begin with unsolicited submissions from amateur or professional photographers, or heirs to neglected shoeboxes.’

Ben Campbell on his father Peter’s photographs of London in the early sixties: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Ben Campbell · In the Shoebox: Peter’s Snapshots

The snapshots in my father’s book were taken during his first three years in London, after he emigrated from New...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 9h

‘Asa Briggs used sweeping educational change to increase equality in England. He helped to make history, as well as writing it.’

Neal Ascherson on the social historian: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Neal Ascherson · Professor Heathrow: Asa Briggs says yes

Asa Briggs used sweeping educational change to increase equality in England. He helped to make history, as well as...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 10h

‘The theme of exile guides the utilitarian design of the new show. Around a hundred archaeological finds from Gaza are laid out in a ground-floor bunker space, complete with strip lights, cold grey-blue walls and chilly steel benches.’

@josephinequinn.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Josephine Quinn · At the Institut du monde arabe: ‘Trésors sauvés de Gaza’

This show has excited controversy: should we even be talking about damage to antiquities in the context of so much...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 11h

‘If such poetry requires so much philosophical vocabulary in order that it might be properly interpreted, then what sense is there in maintaining that poetry’s ways of making sense of things are fundamentally distinct from those of philosophy?’

On Charles Taylor: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Stephen Mulhall · Self-Interpreting Animals

New linguistic articulations can reconfigure the way we make sense of our own feelings, thoughts and responses – our...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 11h

‘Should comedians be held to a higher standard than footballers? It would help if they weren’t so fond of touting their own importance, their skewering of the ruling class, their “speaking truth to power”.’

Malin Hay on the House of Saud’s comedy festival: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Malin Hay | Laughing Their Heads Off

If there’s anything ironic about being so scared of telling the wrong joke that you run straight into the arms of the...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 12h

‘The novel has a question to ask: did the drowned man really drown? The answer isn’t easy to find. All we have are omens.’

Blake Morrison reads Susan Choi’s Booker-shortlisted 𝘍𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Blake Morrison · Reflexive Hostility: Susan Choi’s ‘Flashlight’

It can’t have been hard for Susan Choi to hit on the title of her novel, which has been shortlisted for the Booker...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘While Kennedy and many others believe that old instruments sound different from modern ones because they seem to be “the loci around which ghosts converge”, they are also drawn to the secrets hidden in their material bodies.’

Thomas Laqueur on the cello: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Thomas Laqueur · A Different Life: Can cellos remember?

Cellists and violinists in particular are haunted by the musicians who played their instruments before them and those...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘Veteran participants of China’s intense fan culture know that real-life idols can disappoint. It’s safer to worship the dead or invented than the living.’

Yun Sheng on China’s Gen Z: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Yun Sheng · Short Cuts: China’s Gen Z

A passive-aggressive ‘lying flat’ attitude is easily dismissed as laziness, but Gen Z-ers have developed a...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘By endorsing the Trump plan, Keir Starmer continues the long-standing British position of denying the Palestinian people’s right to national self-determination.’

Anne Irfan on Britain’s history with Palestine, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

Anne Irfan | Balfour to Blair

The British government has formally backed Donald Trump’s latest plan for Gaza, which proposes a leading role for Tony...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘The 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 was the first book to be banned by the papacy, more than fifty years before the creation of the Index of Prohibited Books.’

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Pico della Mirandola: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Erin Maglaque · Thishereness: Pico in Purgatory

Pico’s Oration contravenes the very idea of human possibility that we think the Renaissance is about – yet we think...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘This attachment to memories of France’s great revolution often make Mélenchon’s ideas resemble those of Romantic writers and utopian socialists in the early 19th century.’

David Todd on Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s manifesto: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

David Todd · Parable of the Parakeets: Mélenchon’s Ambitions

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s rise to prominence since 2015 has often been compared to the contemporaneous if more ephemeral...

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 1d

‘Speculation like this is bound to have some humans wondering why we need to do this to ourselves, and considering the efficacy of sledgehammers. Perhaps AI will get to that point on its own.’

@jamesmeek.bsky.social on the search for Artificial General Intelligence: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

James Meek · Computers that want things

For all the fluency and synthetic friendliness of public-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, it seems important to remember...