Category: Book reviews
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Is your bookshop hiding anything from you?
In the last few weeks, Hannah Barnes’ new book, Time to Think has been eagerly awaited. Anxious parents are concerned about schools being told to keep secrets from them, and about what their children are learning about sex and gender on TikTok. In political circles, the existence or otherwise of ‘innate gender identity’ is a…
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“A dark journey into what ails America”
In his 2022 book The Storm is Here, US-born journalist Luke Mogelson starts out, surrounded by the heavily armed members of various self-instigated militias, talking to a barber who defied lockdown over ‘the right to a haircut’. It’s not entirely clear who is there defending what from whom, although the New World Order, the Russians,…
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A Radical Review
What I learned from Issue Eight – ‘the disputes edition’ – of The Radical Notion and from reading Maya Forstater’s critique of it Click here for a TRN download link. Click here to buy a paper copy of TRN. Just in case you’re thinking about last summer and saying… Oh, no, please, no! …this, after…
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The Jaguar Smile
This is a review of The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie. I read it in 2023 because… From time to time, I like revisiting ‘old’ books, because until I was involved in the book trade, I didn’t know how casually ‘back list’ books are treated, nor how easily they can drop off into the ‘not…
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Did *you* know about Dinky Gordon?
***Long read*** Subtle radicalism escapes me — here though, is a salute to them as can do it, and an analysis of the huge myth-busting task feminists still face… I can be a clod-hopper in all these big and passionately fought-over issues. How on earth do you go about being polite, subtle, and yet effective…
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Come on in, it’s what you’ve been dreaming of…?
It sets off as a second person narrative, and doesn’t give you a name. He’s wading through a typical day which may or may not be the same as yours, but you’ll relate to the wading. And then something weird happens. I think everyone from H G Wells to David Nobbs has written this story…
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Why lefties need a big book about anti-Semitism
this book is a valuable, unique reference book – Moshé Machover I’m not Jewish, and until I joined the Labour Party, I was for the most part unaware which of the people around me were Jewish. By contrast, I found out which of my new Labour Party associates were Jewish very quickly, mostly when they…
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Unfiltered indeed
#chillaxing with my faves @HolisticHazel and @PollysFewBits #MamasNightOut #MamasOnTheLoose #partay #besties Er…. okay. This article will eventually be a piece about Unfiltered by Sophie White, but first I’d like to explain how I became cool by sheer negligence. Yep – it’s true – your friendly neighbourhood pavement-pounding blogger does not have a SMARTphone (I only…
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What do words mean? A prediction, and a scrap of advice for 2023
2023 will be a year to choose your words carefully and stand by them, and it will be a year in which doing so may cause your opponents to froth at the mouth. It may also result in your being arrested, and actually charged, for uttering illegal words. These days, I have a slight nag…
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The “no debate” debate
I thought I’d wave goodbye to 2022 with an appeal for a re-discovery of the ability to disagree without dying. I am the proud owner of a review copy of Tony Greenstein’s Zionism During the Holocaust. I’ve read quite a bit of it, and when I’ve finished, I’ll be doing a proper review but today,…
Kay Green 