For anyone looking for a version of Gone Girl set in North London, this is not the book for you. Or maybe it is — the first half, I mean. Because this a clever book…Read more…
I am running for a seat on the Executive Committee of Democrats Abroad UK
This is my candidate statement: When I launched the Bernie Sanders campaign in the U.K. in July 2015 – at the Independence Day picnic of Democrats Abroad in Portman Square – I had no idea…Read more…
Review: The Socialist Party of America, by David A. Shannon
This book, written in 1955, is essential reading today for anyone interested in democratic socialism. Democratic Socialists of America, one of the successor organizations of the Socialist Party, is…Read more…
Review: So You Want to Publish a Book? by Anne Trubek
As someone who both writes and publishes books, I was keen to read a well-reviewed, short text aimed at people like myself. I was not disappointed. This is a clear, well-written introduction to the…Read more…
Review: From the Red Army to SOE, by Major L H Manderstam with Roy Heron
Let me begin by saying that Major L H Manderstam is not someone I’d want to invite over for dinner. This memoir, published in 1985 shortly after the author’s death, is full of obnoxious…Read more…
Review: Jews Don’t Count, by David Baddiel
This is a brilliant book and I encourage all my non-Jewish friends to read it. My Jewish friends will not need to read it because what Baddiel writes — and he writes really well —…Read more…
Review: Slough House, by Mick Herron
This, the seventh book in the Jackson Lamb series, does not disappoint. I imagine most everyone who reads it has already devoured the previous six books. For us, the return of Lamb and his…Read more…
100 years on, the Georgian experiment remains relevant
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Georgia in February 1921. This is significant today, and not only for Georgians and Russians. Back in 1921, Georgia was ruled by the…Read more…
100 years on, the Georgian experiment remains relevant
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Georgia in February 1921. This is significant today, and not only for Georgians and Russians. Back in 1921, Georgia was ruled by the…Read more…
Review: The Case for Keto: The Truth About Low-Carb, High-Fat Eating, by Gary Taubes
Nearly twenty years ago, science journalist Gary Taubes wrote an article for the magazine section of the Sunday New York Times reporting that some eminent scientists were beginning to re-think the…Read more…
Kennedy, not Johnson, led the US into the quagmire
This letter was published in the February 2021 issue of Literary Review. In his otherwise excellent review of The Tyranny of Merit (LR, December 2020 – January 2021), Andrew Adonis challenges…Read more…
Review: Guarding Hitler: The Secret World of the Führer, by Mark Felton
According to author Mark Felton, the people put in charge of keeping Adolf Hitler safe and well actually created the modern practice of body-guarding, sometimes known as ‘close…Read more…
Thomas Friedman is wrong about ‘democratic socialism’
I sent this letter off to the New York Times two weeks ago. They have not published it. But I thought some of you might find it of interest. Thomas Friedman in his column “Trump…Read more…
Review: The Catch, by Mick Herron
While fans wait for the arrival of the seventh Slough House novel by British author Mick Herron, he has thrown some crumbs to his audience with a series of novellas — this being the most…Read more…
Review: Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends, by Anne Applebaum
Anne Applebaum is a great historian, a terrific journalist and a strong opponent of authoritarian regimes everywhere. But this book disappoints. It begins with a party she and her Polish husband…Read more…
Review: The Drop & The List, by Mick Herron
When I first discovered Mick Herron’s ‘Slough House’ series of books, I got completely hooked, and read all six of them in a binge lasting 24 days. And now, like so many other fans…Read more…
Review: Agent Sonya, by Ben MacIntyre
This is the story of Ursula Kuczynski, a Soviet spy who was instrumental in ensuring that Stalin was able to build an atomic bomb. So at first glance, not an entirely sympathetic character. And yet…Read more…
Review: I am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes
A young Saudi man, radicalised by the experience of seeing his father beheaded for his iconoclastic views, grows into the world’s most fearsome terrorist — known as Saracen. Deciding to take…Read more…
Review: SOE: An outline history of the Special Operations Executive 1940-46, by M.R.D. Foot
Few people knew as much about the highly-secretive SOE – whose task, according to Churchill, was to ‘set Europe ablaze’ – as M.R.D. Foot. This short book is an introduction to…Read more…
Review: The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate”: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences, by John Marks
First published more than 40 years ago, this book tells the unbelievable story of the CIA’s experiments with mind control. Some of these even pre-date the founding of the CIA itself. Its…Read more…