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‘Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s new and self-created version of the modernist sentence mixes Scots and English to resemble “a meandering, live thought-process”, as Ali Smith puts it: “poetic and realist and soaring and dark and local and strange all at once”.’ Jenny Turner: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jenny Turner · Hated and Loved in a Breath: On Lewis Grassic GibbonGibbon’s new and self-created version of the modernist sentence mixes Scots and English to resemble ‘a meandering,...www.lrb.co.uk

‘Law is not the only element in determining citizenship: the actions of those who interpret or challenge the law are just as important.’ @kabcommons.bsky.social on England’s birthright citizenship. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Kathleen Commons · Short Cuts: England’s Birthright CitizenshipIt was relatively straightforward for the British government to end birthright subjecthood: statute overrides common law...www.lrb.co.uk

‘A wildly unrealistic Welsh recipe collection from around 1400 identified saffron, one of the most expensive spices, as a way “to be happy always” but warned against eating too much of it, lest “you die of happiness”.’ Barbara Newman on medieval wellness. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Barbara Newman · Beasts with Ravening Whelps: Helthe and WeltheSelf-Help from the Middle Ages raises some provocative questions about historical figures. Was Thomas Aquinas truly a...www.lrb.co.uk

‘The extraterrestrial has become an ideological question rather than a creature. It means freedom to know what there is to know, and what has been repressed for far too long.’ Michael Wood watches 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘺. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Michael Wood · At the Movies: ‘Disclosure Day’Steven Spielberg uses the extraterrestrial as a stand-in for almost anything strange. It’s not always a virtue, but...www.lrb.co.uk

‘By the time Chauvet was painted the figure-field dialogue, and its power as an organiser of possible worlds, had clearly been the subject of long theory and practice. These are sophisticated performances.’ T.J. Clark on the Chauvet cave paintings, new online. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

T.J. Clark · Night Visitors: What I saw in the caveThe world exceeds us. It comes to us out of darkness. The cave is the universe, the nightly presence of that unknown...www.lrb.co.uk

‘The scores for both 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘢𝘯 and 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘰 are the work of a composer who recognises that his task is to seek out the essence of the material on screen and to express that rather than himself.’ @jonathancoe.bsky.social on Hitchcock’s composer Bernard Herrmann. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jonathan Coe · Where was the drum kit? Hitchcock’s MusicThe music Bernard Herrmann wrote for The Wrong Man is diffident, sometimes almost unnoticeable. His score for Hitchcock...www.lrb.co.uk

‘If 𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘑𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘵 is the greatest play about love, I would say ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ is the greatest poem about love and about how lovers are transfigured by their shared experience.’ Mark Ford on our Close Readings subscription podcast. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

Narrative Poems: ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ by John KeatsPodcast Episode · Close Readings · 3 August · 1hr 10minpodcasts.apple.com

so how’s it going with the Parkinson’s? you say and I start to say every moment bleeding to death around me but the therapist cautioned me yesterday don’t say dread call it discomfort you’re not in danger you’re uncomfortable ‘Smile’, a poem by Anne Carson. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Anne Carson · Poem: ‘Smile’www.lrb.co.uk

‘In accepting Catholic authority, writers unleashed their imaginations. As Graham Greene said, quoting Saki, “When once you have taken the Impossible into your calculations, its possibilities become practically limitless.”’ @michaelledgerlomas.bsky.social on converts. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Michael Ledger-Lomas · Pattern in the Carpet: Novel CatholicsIn accepting Catholic authority, writers unleashed their imaginations. As Graham Greene said, quoting Saki, ‘When once...www.lrb.co.uk

‘Bev Craig has promised to build fifty thousand affordable homes over the next thirteen years. This would be a doubling of the rate at which they were built between 2016 and 2023.’ @harrystopes.bsky.social on Mancehester’s rentier economy, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/au...

Harry Stopes | ManchesterismsBev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council before she was comfortably elected last week to replace Andy Burnham as...www.lrb.co.uk

‘The representation of Odysseus as a reluctant warlord makes a nonsense of the movie’s imagined world. We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it – a very different point.’ Emily Wilson on Christopher Nolan’s film. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated ManAs they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...www.lrb.co.uk

‘Marat swapped dense political analysis for a style that practically shouted at his readers; he vowed to keep them “constantly alert”, to prevent them from “falling back into the abyss”.’ Oliver Cussen on the journalist and revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Oliver Cussen · Doctor of the Incurable: Marat UnmadeBeyond the violence and immediacy of his language, perhaps Jean-Paul Marat was popular for a more straightforward reason...www.lrb.co.uk

‘Perhaps the most precious aspect of the caves is that they preserve a picture in which hierarchy and human-centredness don’t look to have been the organising assumptions.’ T.J. Clark on the Chauvet cave paintings, published online early from our summer issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

T.J. Clark · Night Visitors: What I saw in the caveThe world exceeds us. It comes to us out of darkness. The cave is the universe, the nightly presence of that unknown...www.lrb.co.uk

‘I think this is a genuinely radical book; I think what Eliot is doing in it is analogous – the closest thing I can think is what David Lynch does with 𝘛𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴.’ Tom McCarthy on 𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩, on our Close Readings subscription podcast. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

The Man Behind the Curtain: ‘Middlemarch’ by George EliotPodcast Episode · Close Readings · 2 August · 1hr 38minpodcasts.apple.com

‘Intrepid sea-going women dressed as men and uncloaked themselves only after they had already established their authority as seafarers and fighters. Some were discovered during flogging.’ @lalehkhalili.bsky.social on women at sea, past and present. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Laleh Khalili · Canton Kitty: SeafaringSeafaring is a bundle of contradictions. It is highly skilled labour, yet mostly invisible. Lower ratings of seafarers...www.lrb.co.uk

‘If AI devastates the universities the way deindustrialisation hollowed out shipbuilding, I wouldn’t want to live next to my former workplace, giving guided tours of a now obsolete lifeform.’ Susan Pedersen on the modern British city. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Susan Pedersen · Worker, Hipster, Banker: Modern British CitiesDeindustrialisation was not a long, slow process but a very quick one, erasing whole occupations and transforming one...www.lrb.co.uk

We’re releasing selected highlights from our Close Readings subscription podcast in full to mark a ‘summer of travel’. This week, @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social and Mary Wellesley look at the fantastical medieval bestseller 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘪𝘳 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Travel with Close Readings: ‘The Travels of Sir John Mandeville’Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 2 August · 1hr 2minpodcasts.apple.com

‘There is nothing random about the cut-up. The released text always bears the signature of the surgeon. A cut-up by Brion Gysin can never be mistaken for a cut-up by William Burroughs.’ Iain Sinclair on William Burroughs’s collaborator Brion Gysin. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Iain Sinclair · Bad Magic: Brion Gysin’s Cut-UpsBad magic attracts bad money. Brion Gysin had a preternatural instinct for the fluctuations of the art market, high-...www.lrb.co.uk

‘The level of homelessness in Manchester is among the highest in the country. Private sector rents have increased by about two-thirds in the last decade, and by around half in the last five years.’ New on the blog: @harrystopes.bsky.social on Manchester. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/au...

Harry Stopes | ManchesterismsBev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council before she was comfortably elected last week to replace Andy Burnham as...www.lrb.co.uk

‘At his best, his deranged images and impeccably glazed sentences create a powerful sense of puzzlement or terror without his having to spell it out.’ Edmund Gordon reads M. John Harrison’s Booker-longlisted novel 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Edmund Gordon · Uncanny Little Blighter: M. John Harrison’s​ ‘The End of Everything’‘What’s the point of an alien artefact you can recognise?’ Harrison asked in Wish I Was Here. ‘As a branch of...www.lrb.co.uk