Commons confidential: Old friend or foe?
Kevin Maguire’s weekly dose of Westminster gossip.
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The world after Brexit
What caused the Russian revolution? Look to the powder keg of Petrograd
How unrest exploded in 1917 – with help from Russia’s Terrible Twins.
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Terry Eagleton’s Materialism treats its arguments like carelessly piled bricks
Making a case by rendering the contrary one manifestly absurd is Eagleton’s compulsive mode of argument.
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Can you first remember when you heard about time travel?
James Gleick’s Time Travel: A History offers hope and nostalgia.
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Why Ezra Pound was the most difficult man of the twentieth century
Adam Kirsch on Daniel Swift’s The Bughouse: the Poetry, Politics and Madness of Ezra Pound.
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The art of suffering: Sara Baume’s A Line Made By Walking
Dead relatives, death-filled homes, rural wanderings fill Sara Baume’s haunting new novel.
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A muse is for sharing: Fiona Sampson’s Lyric Cousins
In her latest work, Fiona Sampson’s verse is alive to musicality.
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Yiyun Li: Can reading help you conquer depression?
In her memoir of depression and reading, Yiyun Li speaks to all those with unquiet minds.
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How Native American culture fought back against the colonisers
The British Museum’s new exhibition reveals the resilience of First Nations culture.
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Rumbles in the jungle: highlights from the Berlin Film Festival
Upcoming releases include drama about a trans woman and an adventure in south America.
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Would the BBC’s Nazi drama SS-GB have felt half so resonant a year ago?
This alternate history is freighted with meaning now we’re facing the wurst-case scenario.
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How Paul Giamatti changed the fate of Pinot Noir
The actor’s prickly character in Sideways – a film about wine buffs – made us appreciate this tricky grape.
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As I get older, my taste in music is leaning towards jangly new psychedelic guitar bands
Nicholas Lezard’s Down and Out.
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Tracey Thorn: I’m nostalgic for revolutionary feminism and the whiff of patchouli
Off the Record.
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I could have sworn that the Lincoln City striker was my dustman…
Watching a game on tenterhooks to see if the manager picks his nose.
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Trailing my escort, we looked for the lost writer of Puget Sound
I sensed a woman who wasn’t wild about her assignment. Perhaps she’d once been traumatised by a comma.
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The anti-Trump toolkit: the new books on how to resist authoritarian rule
What We Do Now and On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.
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Martin Schulz: could this man bring an end to the reign of Angela Merkel?
The German Eurocrat is the biggest threat to the possibility of a fourth term for Merkel.
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How working less could help you achieve more
A Japanese lesson in the paradox of productivity.
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China’s battle to breathe
Why smog is causing social unrest.
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Leader: Remainers have a right to be heard
One does not have to agree with Tony Blair to respect his right to make an anti-Brexit argument.
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Jamie Reed: What it’s like to stop being an MP
As I approach the whips’ office through the tearoom staircase, a colleague shouts: “It’s Steve McQueen!”
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Arsène Wenger: how can an intelligent manager preside over such a hollowed-out team?
The Arsenal manager faces a frustrating legacy.
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The unbearable whiteness of Washington DC
How a new African-American history museum reveals the changing face of the US capital.
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Emmanuel Macron: a populist eruption from the liberal centre
The French presidential candidate has been compared with a young Tony Blair.
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Rough justice: who is looking out for the wrongfully convicted?
How internet sleuths – and secret courts – have changed the reporting of miscarriages of justice.
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The polls are bad, but Jeremy Corbyn’s office has a secret weapon
How a shake-up of the leadership team has steadied nerves at the top of Labour.
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The old British tactic of divide and rule in Europe will not work for Brexit negotiations
The other 27 governments in the EU may struggle to maintain a common line once the phoney war ends.
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The world after Brexit
The crucial variable is not British power but the weakness of Europe.
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