STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
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The best books of 2022 with Gavin O'Toole
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
JAN WOOLF relishes an extensive history of our long relationship to trees in Britain that underlines the current emergency
DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack
IF ONE character has been more prominent than many in political titles published in 2022, it is the gate-crasher UK parties struggle to evict from their comfort zones: the working class.
This hoary, troublesome vagrant just keeps inveigling its way into politics as the spectre no-one dares name, whether this be during the toxic discourse of Tory extremists or the rambling deliberation of Keir Starmer’s new New Labour.
Yet several books published this year sense the zeitgeist by acknowledging this unwelcome guest at the party forever on the verge of spoiling the complacent liberal democratic chatter with its crude curses.
In some titles, our party pooper turns up in fancy dress, not immediately identifiable but roaming the host’s house nonetheless. It is there, if concealed, in Adrian Bingham’s United Kingdom (Polity), a thematic history that traces the secular decline of a country badly failed by its political establishment.
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GAVIN O’TOOLE is enthralled by the colourful portrait of a woman who pioneered a path into the tough, magical world of journalism
Looking for moral co-ordinates after a tough year for rational political thinking and shared human morality
Looking for moral co-ordinates after a tough year for rational political thinking and shared human morality
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes, and recommends a a candid, evidence-based record of Britain’s role in the slaughter visited by Israel upon the Palestinians