Amia Srinivasan’s review of Loving Animals: On Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love for the London Review of Books is thought-provoking. [Includes the obvious NSFW content, as well as brief descriptions of violence and cruelty to both humans and a…
No Time to Die review: Daniel Craig dispatches James Bond with panache, rage – and cuddles
The long-awaited 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s superspy is a weird and self-aware epic with audacious surprises up its sleeveThe standard bearer of British soft power is back, in a film yanked from cinemas back in the time of the toilet roll shortage, …
…interwoven appreciation of the neural function with literary commentary
What Is Literature For? – A Symposium on Angus Fletcher’s “Wonderworks” (LARB): Three reviews of Wonderworks (two glowing, one scathing) and a reply by the author. Erik J. Larson: “All of this tech-talk injected into literature would seem superficial,…
How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X Kendi awarded MacArthur ‘genius grant’
Writers Daniel Alarcón and Reginald Dwayne Betts have also been named on the list of 25 new fellows to receive $625,000 from the foundationThe bestselling historian Ibram X Kendi has been awarded a $625,000 (£460,000) MacArthur “genius grant” for his w…
Covid car parks to galactic lockdown: fascinating but futile quarantine ideas
Whether atomic priesthoods, 50ft concrete spikes or burying astronauts in concrete, humanity’s attempts to keep free from infection are examined in Until Proven SafeIn January 2020, just a few days before the first Covid-19-infected passengers landed i…
Pinker’s progress: the celebrity scientist at the centre of the culture wars
How the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker became one of the world’s most contentious thinkersOn a recent afternoon, Steven Pinker, the cognitive psychologist and bestselling author of upbeat books about human progress, was sitting in his summer home o…
Nigel Kennedy on his Classic FM fight: ‘Hendrix is like Beethoven, Vivaldi is more Des O’Connor’
Fresh from a bust-up with ‘Jurassic FM’ over playing Hendrix, the violinist talks about musical snobbery, going on strike and his lifelong regret at turning Duke Ellington downThroughout his career, Nigel Kennedy has had run-ins with what he calls the …
Marvel sues to retain control of Avengers characters
The comics giant has issued lawsuits in a bid to hold on to the copyright of heroes including Spider-Man and Iron ManMarvel has filed a series of lawsuits in a bid to retain full control of characters including Spider-Man and Iron Man.The complaints, w…
‘They changed my ending, I felt aghast’ – how we made Wicked
‘I once performed Defying Gravity at the White House within spitting distance of the Obamas,’ says Idina Menzel. ‘In fact, I might actually have spat on them’I’d played with the story of The Wizard of Oz since my childhood in the US when I would arrang…
Should scientists run the country?
Covid has put academics like Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance at the heart of policymaking, but electing better politicians could be the answerHow many lives would have been saved in the pandemic if the UK government had truly “followed the science”? …