DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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Stone-cold truths
MICHAL BONCZA recommends a salutary new book on the Palestinians whose skills built the zionist state
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Stone Men: The Palestinians Who Built Israel
by Andre Ross
(Verso, £16.99)
THERE’S a millennial tradition of stonemasonry that evolved around the world’s best-quality dolomitic limestone and its Palestinian practitioners are renowned across the whole of the Middle East for their skills. They’ve built virtually every state in the region except, of course, their own.
As the blurb to Andre Ross’s book points out, the stonemasons have been used to build the state of Israel and, in the process, construct “facts on the ground.” There “they demolish our houses while we build theirs,” is how a Palestinian stonemason, waiting at a checkpoint in Jerusalem, describes his experience to Andrew Ross in this book.
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