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Sep 12, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Sam Forster |Sean Williams |Paul Wood |Orlando Bird
The books that most vividly and expansively illustrate the human experience are not the ones that grapple with life’s most romantic or fantastical tribulations. Charles Baxter’s latest work is splendid proof of this abiding literary fact. Baxter, a Minnesotan who is author of a multitude of novels and short story collections, returns with Blood Test, a book that delves into some quotidian yet disconcerting aspects of modern American life.
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Philip Clark |A.S.H. Smyth |Christopher Sandford |Sam Forster
In 1961, the folk guitarist Barry Kornfeld moved back to Manhattan after spending a year in Boston. The Greenwich Village folk musicians he called friends, who before his trip to Boston had been enduring a hand-to-mouth existence, were now making a living playing their music in clubs along MacDougal Street — not necessarily “a good living,” Kornfeld noted, but certainly enough to get by. Kornfeld spotted another difference, too.
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Jun 17, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Sam Forster |Mark Nayler |Michael Evans |Philip Patrick
An extreme form of mental gymnastics is required to believe that a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigration philosemite in an interracial marriage is also Canada’s beachhead for an invasion of American-style white nationalism. Then again, Canadians have extremely flexible imaginations.
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Jun 17, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Sam Forster
An extreme form of mental gymnastics is required to believe that a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ, pro-immigration philosemite in an interracial marriage is also Canada’s beachhead for an invasion of American-style white nationalism. Then again, Canadians have extremely flexible imaginations.
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Apr 27, 2024 | 
batimes.com.ar | Sam Forster
Of the long list of polarities which distinguish Javier Milei from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, few stand out as starkly as their postures toward the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Even before the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October 7, Argentina’s eccentric head of state was garnering attention with his staunchly pro-Israel stance, routinely and proudly attracting the label of philosemite.
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Apr 27, 2024 | 
batimes.com.ar | Sam Forster
President Javier Milei has reorientated Argentina’s foreign policy since taking office and no nation has been backed more forcefully than Israel. Following Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israeli territory earlier this month, Israeli Deputy Ambassador Adam Levene spoke with the Times. President Milei has obviously been a strong supporter of Israel. What has this support meant to the Israeli people?
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Julius Strauss |Alexander Larman |Ross Anderson |Sam Forster
Fifty-three-year old Irina Kotenko was already awake when a Russian drone crashed into the roof of her three-story building at 1 am last Thursday. She had heard another strike nearby and was wondering where it might have hit. The explosion blew out the windows of her home. Somehow Irina, her husband, Vitaly, forty-eight, and her daughter Aleksandra, twenty-one, survived unscathed.
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Alexander Larman |Byron’s Women |Ross Anderson |Sam Forster
Forty years on from the year in which it is set, and released on the date of Winston Smith’s first diary entry, George Orwell’s seminal dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (not 1984, despite how this most recent retelling has chosen to style the title) has received perhaps its highest-profile adaptation since Michael Radford’s film. Andrew Garfield plays the reluctantly rebellious Winston, and man-of-the-moment Andrew Scott is a smoothly vicious O’Brien.
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Ross Anderson |Sam Forster |Mark Galeotti |Romina Frohar
Only a few short years ago, I was a professional bartender working for Michelin-star chefs in fine-dining restaurants and, eventually, serving the social elite in five-star hotels. Most of the known names were genial. Killer Mike and El-P of Run the Jewels were gentlemen. So too were Thundercat and Anderson .Paak — who were particularly keen on my margaritas.
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Sam Forster |Mark Galeotti |Romina Frohar |Michela Wrong
Naquora, LebanonTensions along the forty-nine-mile Blue Line that partitions Israel from Lebanon are as high as they’ve been in recent history. Given the stated objectives of Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite militia that controls Lebanon’s South and the IDF, which seeks to repel them beyond striking distance, that’s saying a lot. Ten thousand sky-blue helmets stand between the warring sides, protecting a division of international troops from the raining debris of intercepted rockets.
