Memphis, along with Atlanta, central to story of black America, located on the Mississippi River, a starting point for refugees from the Deep South where they can engage with its vibrant African-American culture and heritage. The city produced music and art and also black empowerment WDIA, “ the mother station of Negroes” – Although…
In Graceland, Bethan Roberts’s fictionalised recreation of the early life of Elvis Presley, and his close relationship with his mother Gladys. At 22, 1957, Elvis already a huge star is called up for his military service, the novel looks into the performer’s chaotic childhood with several chapters filled with grownup dilemas concerning show business,…
In Nine Crises, William Keegan examines a series of turning points , starting with the devaluation crisis of 1967 and ending with post Brexit turmoil fifty years later. This book explains how key participants viewed each crisis as it unfolded and what they hoped to achieve. The British economic policy and its policymakers have…
Merchant of Truth breaks the ultimate news story of our times. What happens when Jill Abramson was fired from the executive editorship of The New York Times in May 2014, she thought she had enough freedom to figure out what she wanted to do. And wanted to start a long-form journalism site which failed. Instead…
In 2015 , Leila Slimani’s debut novel, an unsparing account of sex addiction, won 200,000 dirhams ( $22,000), the La Mamounia literary award ( prix de La Mamounia) in Marrakesh – a prize for French-language fiction by Moroccan authors awarded and donated by the La Mamounia hotel in the hotel where Winston Churchill loved to…
What measures will governments and people take in response to such tectonic economic and cultural shift and how to avoid the prospect of undermining the very foundations of prosperity? The US President’ strongest supporters live in the declining states. The UK’s Brexit backers are mostly from struggling regions, as in rich countries the divide that…
The Bedroom is an essay, a working through of Perrot’s various thoughts and literary entanglements, on the bedroom, the room turned askance and viewed via its various uses , turns into a history of privacy and what, exactly, identity, comfort , sequestration and ownership might have meant though the ages to writers as diverse as…
With the arrival of Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street in 1979 a major privatisation drive began not only selling industrial holdings, transport infrastructure, the telephone system but also the land and public buildings erected on it. Land makes a major chunk of national wealth and an estimate by the Office for National Statistics concluded…
“Mr Five Per Cent” the godfather of Iraq’s oil industry, Calouste Gulbenkian’s art of negotiation with minutiae of complex legal agreements, and haggling until the breaking point of an opponent’s patience was reached, is in line with his motto “ Check, check, Check”. When he died in 1955, aged 86, he was the world’s richest…
“Genetics is the most important factor shaping who we are” write Robet Plomin a behavioural geneticist at King’s College London recognised globally for his research into the genetics of intelligence. “ It explains more of the psychological differences between us thane everything else put together, the most important environmental factors, such as our families and…