Soviet history: Stalin and his cursed cause

( 1 Vote )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28
High five for communism

Stalin’s Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War. By Robert Gellately. Knopf; 464 pages; $32.50. Oxford University Press; £20. Buy from Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk 

FIRST and foremost, Stalin was a communist, who believed that the sacred cause justified the most extreme measures: what non-believers would call

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Once the Musical: how I fell for its honesty

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28

Once was a surprise cinema hit – a micro-budget romance about an Irish busker and a Czech flower seller. Who better to adapt it for stage than self-confessed misanthrope Enda Walsh? The playwright recalls his journey from cynic to proud, emotional wreck

We don't do musicals in Ireland. Well, not much. We like to keep our actors and musicians...

Women and work: The feminist mystique

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28

Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead. By Sheryl Sandberg. Knopf; 228 pages; $24.95. W.H. Allen; £16.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

SHERYL SANDBERG, Facebook’s chief operating officer, is the most famous woman in Silicon Valley and, to many, the face of female corporate America. Now, with her new book, “Lean In”, she also becomes its voi

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Theoretical physics: Missing the Nobel

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28

Maverick Genius: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson. By Phillip Schewe. Thomas Dunne; 352 pages; $27.99. Buy from Amazon.com 

EVEN against the rarefied skyline of Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Study stands tall. Its lawns were trodden by Albert Einstein, Albert Hirschman, T.S. Eliot and a host of other bright sparks. Residents are

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Anderson Cooper given Glaad's top honour in annual gay media awards

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28

Smash and How to Survive A Plague documentary among others earning accolades for positive portrayal of gay stories

Pop star Madonna on Saturday presented CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper with a gay media watchdog's top honors in recognition of his stature and accomplishment as an openly gay journalist.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself," she said, decrying...

The Iraq war: Decade of regret

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28
Waiting for the final chapter

Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism. By Toby Dodge. Routledge; 216 pages; $26.95. Buy from Amazon.com

FOR the first few years of this century Iraq loomed bright in the media. Journalists swarmed the country when America invaded in March 2003, staying to chronicle in painful detail the long, slow bleed of (mostly)

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Springtime of the Renaissance: At the dawn of magnificence

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28

ITALY’S self-esteem is at a low ebb. Last month’s election was won by clowns. The Italian economy is struggling and the new pope is reading the results of an unhappy inquiry into the Roman Catholic church bequeathed to him by his predecessor. But for visitors to Florence, the dome that Filippo Brunelleschi built in 1436 rises “above the skies, ampl

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Grinling Gibbons: Cutting for inspiration

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28
Who wood have thought it?

The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making. By David Esterly. Viking; 280 pages; $27.95. Duckworth Overlook; £16.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

BEHIND the altar at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, in central London, hangs a masterpiece by a 17th-century woodcarver by the name of Grinling Gibbons. Its swags and f

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New fiction: A singular voice

( 0 Votes )
Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:28

Ghana Must Go. By Taiye Selasi. Penguin Press; 318 pages; $25.95. To be published in Britain next month by Viking. Buy from Amazon.com

JANE AUSTEN was wrong. It is not weddings that make the best fiction, but funerals. Taiye Selasi’s first novel opens with the unexpected death of her hero, Kweku Sai. A brilliant medical student from Ghana who b

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