Joanne Harris knows a thing or two about writing, having published some 20 novels and several other books as well. This short book came out at the height of the Covid-19 crisis and just in…Read more…
Review: The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I’ve thought for a while that one of the most honest films ever made about the subject of slavery in America is Quentin Tarantino’s Django. Even though the film is a fantasy (much like…Read more…
Review: Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists, by Julia Ebner
In 1943, the best-selling book Under Cover by John Roy Carlson described the pro-Axis groups that thrived in the US before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Carlson — whose real name…Read more…
Review: Killing Eve: Die for Me, by Luke Jennings
This is the third, and final, book in the series that began with Codename: Villanelle. When I first read about that book, I was very keen to read it — and was not disappointed. The…Read more…
Review: Gooseberries, by Anton Chekhov
The first of the Penguin Little Black Classics series that I’ve read — having bought a whole shelf of them a few years back — and it’s a good one. Chekhov is described as…Read more…
Review: Lovecraft Country, by Matt Ruff
Matt Ruff has taken a long, hard look at what life was like for African Americans in the early 1950s and reimagined it as horror fiction written by the master, H.P. Lovecraft. All the main…Read more…
Why Sanders lost
Why did Bernie Sanders fail to win the Democratic nomination in 2020? Let’s start with three explanations that don’t work. 1. The Democratic party establishment conspired to stop him. That was only…Read more…
Review: The Institute, by Stephen King
Stephen King is a master story teller and his latest book is further proof of his skills. It tells the story of a young boy, Luke Ellis, who is kidnapped from his home as his…Read more…
Bernie Sanders’ 6 point plan
Bernie Sanders has drafted a 6 point plan for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and the looming economic crisis – and the strange thing is that he doesn’t mention the presidential election nor…Read more…
Democrats in disarray as Trump’s popularity soars
The coronavirus pandemic has created a new reality in the United States, as it has all over the world. And coming as it has during a presidential election, it has completely upended the political…Read more…
Review: Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, by Laura Spinney
We have been here before, and last time it was far worse. Somewhere between 50 and 100 million people died during the so-called “Spanish Flu”, for which there was no cure and no vaccine,…Read more…
Does America need a socialist party?
In the aftermath of the disappointing results for the Sanders campaign in the primaries following Nevada, supporters of the self-described “democratic socialist” Senator from Vermont have been…Read more…
Review: A Death in Jerusalem, by Kati Marton
Journalist Kati Marton’s 1994 book opens with a description of the massacre of Arab worshippers in Hebron early that year by a far-right Jewish terrorist named Baruch Goldstein. Had her book…Read more…
Sanders’ socialist plan for the pandemic
The mainstream media has already written off Bernie Sanders and crowned Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate to challenge Donald Trump (despite the primaries being far from over). But that hasn’t…Read more…
Review: Instead of Arms, by Count Folke Bernadotte
“I myself have been criticized because, during the last war, as one of the leaders of the Swedish Red Cross, I did not publicly denounce Nazism and its methods.” So wrote Count Folke…Read more…
Political revolution in the age of pandemics
The decision by the AFL-CIO to cancel the planned candidates’ forum in Florida this week is bad news for Bernie Sanders. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Sanders to challenge his sole…Read more…
Bernie Sanders’ Cuba Problem
As the possibility grows of Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic nomination for President, his opponents are looking for vulnerabilities that can be exploited. This shouldn’t be difficult, as…Read more…
How Sanders wins
For some time now I’ve been arguing that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is the front-runner in the race to be the Democratic candidate to face off against Donald Trump in November. A few months…Read more…
Review: To Jerusalem, by Count Folke Bernadotte
This is the diary of Counte Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Mediator sent to manage the truce between Israeli and Arab forces during the War of Independence and also to make progress toward a…Read more…
Review: Hitler’s Death: The Case Against Conspiracy, by Luke Daly-Groves
Adolf Hitler killed himself on 30 April 1945 in his bunker in Berlin. He did not escape to Argentina in a U-boat. He did not go into hiding in a monastery in Tibet. He was…Read more…