OK, I’ve said this before and I have to say it again: plot is not Mick Herron’s greatest strength. In this book, the fifth in the Slough House series, a bunch of terrorists blow up some…Read more…
How Netanyahu lost
On October 30, 1972 a little-known author named Arthur Tobier published a book entitled How McGovern Won the Presidency and Why the Polls Were Wrong. The New York Times described the book as “perhaps…Read more…
Review: Spook Street, by Mick Herron
Let me start by saying that having now read the first four books in the Jackson Lamb/Slough House series, I think we can pretty well give up on any expectation that the plots are going to get any…Read more…
Review: Roman Malinovsky: A Life Without A Cause, by Ralph Carter Elwood
The name of Roman Malinovsky is little remembered today, but this was not the case a bit more than a century ago. Malinovsky was one of the most important figures in the Bolshevik Party in the years…Read more…
Review: Real Tigers, by Mick Herron
The third volume in Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb series of thrillers continues to be as good as promised. Each of the books sees one or more members of his ‘slow horses’ team leave…Read more…
Review: Dead Lions, by Mick Herron
The second of Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb thrillers is as good as the first. But … you have to love the characters. Perhaps ‘love’ is the wrong way of putting it. They are,…Read more…
Review: Slow Horses, by Mick Herron
To be honest, I never heard of Mick Herron — but having just read a review of the sixth book in the series, I thought I’d give it a go. And I’m hooked. Herron has been compared to…Read more…
Review: Superman: Red Son, by Mark Millar
I read this graphic novel with great hope as it was based on a great idea. Imagine if Kal-El, son of Krypton, had landed not in Smallville in the American midwest, but on a collective farm in the…Read more…
Surpriza malkovro en Texel
My first article in Esperanto – for the website uea.facila.org, which is aimed at people learning the language (hence the short texts in simple Esperanto). I’ll bet that most people…Read more…
Prospects for the Israeli Left 2019
Presentation to Ideas for Freeedom, London, 22 June 2019 What are the prospects for the Israeli Left today? My short answer is: bleak. In Israel’s first elections following independence in…Read more…
In the fight for workers’ rights, there are no borders
The following is the text of my presentation to the international seminar held in Oslo this week by the Arthur Svensson foundation. First of all, I want to thank the Svensson foundation for the…Read more…
Review: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell
I first read George Orwell’s account of his time in Spain many years ago, and now re-read in advance of a visit to Barcelona. I am actually writing this review from the hotel in which Orwell…Read more…
Review: Their Little Secret, by Mark Billingham
Their Little Secret, the latest in the Tom Thorne series of crime novels, offers further proof of why author Mark Billingham is probably the best crime writer in Britain today — and one of our…Read more…
All The World’s A Stage, by Boris Akunin
I read this book in the wrong order as it precedes Akunin’s Black City, which I recently completed. And it does set the stage (sorry – couldn’t resist) for the latter book, with…Read more…
Back to Linux
Several years back, I had a Linux laptop. But by around 2010 I had migrated to the Apple ecosystem, starting with an iPad, and left …Read more…
Review: Black City, by Boris Akunin
Boris Akunin is the pseudonym for Grigory Chkhartishvili, one of the most successful crime writers ever to emerge from Russia. His series of books featuring …Read more…
Review: The Battle, by Richard Overy
This book has now gone through several editions, and was recently re-issued with a slightly different title. It is a very short history of the Battle of Britain of 1940-41 and in just a few…Read more…
If we can’t get a new government, let’s get a new Left
The Israeli Left failed yesterday in its attempt to change the leadership and the direction of the country. Maybe it’s time to change the Left instead. And let’s learn a lesson from Israel’s history…Read more…
Review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, illustrated by Renée Nault
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been in the news a lot lately. Her book is now considered a classic, a recent television adaptation was a huge success, and a sequel is due out…Read more…
Review: Eugene V. Debs: A Graphic Biography by Noah Van Sciver, Paul Buhle, Steve Max and Dave Nance
The colourful Eugene V. Debs would make a wonderful subject for a graphic novel but unfortunately, this is not the book I’d recommend. A text-heavy graphic novel that cannot decide if…Read more…