Richard Flanagan Q&A: “My mother hoped I might make a good plumber“
The author on growing up in Tasmania, his favourite cricketer, and politics as a shadow play.
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Europe: the new disorder
Why go to a tropical paradise and hunch in a gym watching TV? Well, it makes losing easier
In Grenada, I could wipe the Spurs result from my mind.
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The case of Hadiza Bawa-Garba should worry every doctor
She was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter in 2015 over the death from sepsis of a six-year-old boy.
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Libraries are for the homeless, the drifters and the snorers – people like me
The chairs in the British Library reading rooms are just about comfy enough for sleep.
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This year, put aside the chocolate reindeer and try the “reverse advent calendar”
Thanks to universal credit, our country needs it.
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Paddington 2 is a perfect tonic for the gloomy winter
There are wonderful little jokes hidden amid the slapstick.
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Network is a two-hour lesson on the dangerous attraction of formless, pointless anger
Bryan Cranston stuns in Ivo van Hove’s dazzling theatre update of the 1976 film.
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Ocean Stories: what it’s really like to work on the world’s seas
Water is second only to outer-space for attracting rapt sub-poetry.
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My Mother’s Lost Children: a funny and powerfully touching film about family
In this BBC Storyville documentary, Danny Ben-Moshe tells an extraordinary tale.
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What Daddy’s Home 2 tells us about career-ruining Hollywood scandals
In Mark Wahlberg and Mel Gibson, the festive romp offers two case studies with different outcomes.
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What do Moomins have to do with the horrors of war?
Finnish artist Tove Jansson was far more than just her children’s books, as this retrospective at Dulwich Picture Gallery shows.
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Six Minutes in May brings the story of Winston Churchill to life
Nicholas Shakespeare manages to evoke tension in an old tale by understanding its human drama.
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The Vanity Fair Diaries: how the dazzling and relentless Tina Brown conquered New York
The magazine mogul is a diamond of a woman – but also an industrial tool, drilling her way up.
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The River of Consciousness looks back on Oliver Sacks’s life in writing
Nature is always more complex than we expect, and Sacks’s gift is to convey this sense of wonder.
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The alt-right, and how the paranoia of white identity politics fuelled Trump’s rise
Two books, Alt-America and Making Sense of the Alt-Right, explore a world of white resentment.
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The new great game in the Middle East
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Iran has become ever more powerful in the region. But now…
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Why England and Australia love to hate each other
Anglo-Australian sport is invariably played with unusual and sometimes disturbing fervour.
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Europe’s hidden fractures
The continent’s old crises have not been resolved.
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Why the left should support Brexit
MPs are wasting a chance for renewal.
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How new media firms such as Vice and BuzzFeed are losing their gloss
Digital media is not, and will likely never be, anywhere near as lucrative as technology.
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David Miliband warns: “There’s no alternative to hard Brexit without Labour”
The former Labour foreign secretary returns to a troubled and anxious Britain, and urges his party to step up.
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Commons Confidential: How Pestminster lives on
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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Ringnecks over Ramsgate: where did Britain’s parrots come from?
It has been suggested some escaped from Shepperton Studios during the filming of The African Queen in 1951.
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I love my country so I need to say: Britain, you’re being an idiot over Brexit
We can turn this around, and we ought to – not just for our own good, but for everyone…
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The bizarre alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia is finally fraying
As the conflict in Yemen rages, there are plenty of signs that times are changing.
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David France’s Diary: Celebrating the good that came from Aids
The author of How to Survive a Plague, winner of the Baillie Gifford prize, on an emotional week.
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Millennials are berated for avocados and lattes – but I suspect they’d rather have houses
How can we really heal the rift between young and old?
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Hammond faces a challenge Osborne never did: Tory MPs are becoming austerity Nimbys
The Chancellor is not a bad boss, but the Treasury is weak.
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The bizarre academic fascination with Charles Manson
I heard an Oxford professor argue that, far from being mad, the cult leader had a lucidly logical mind.
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Emmerson Mnangagwa: Will Zimbabwe’s new ruler break with Mugabe’s legacy?
Robert Mugabe’s successor is more pragmatic, but no keener on loosening his party’s grip on power.
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The New Statesman Leader: Robert Mugabe, the fall of a tyrant
Finally, Zimbabwe has a realistic opportunity to repair its shattered economy and escape fear and repression.
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