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Jan 9, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Scott Bradfield |Teresa Mull |Christopher Sandford |Philip Womack
For those of us who have long loved (or hated) Paradise Lost, this is one of those rare and refreshing books that invites us to compare our feelings with other committed readers over the centuries. The poem may well be the only major work in the western canon that nobody can avoid for long — even if it comes down to making a decision not to read it at all, or just to give up trying.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
newrepublic.com | Scott Bradfield
It is hard to think of another living writer who produces structures as ebullient and dirigiblelike as Alan Hollinghurst does. His first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), depicts London streets, tube stops, pubs, and gym locker rooms as an infinitely detailed region of aspiration, desire, and finely tuned observation.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Scott Bradfield
What in Me is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost Jonathan Cape, pp.272, 22 For those of us who have long loved (or hated) Paradise Lost, this is one of those rare and refreshing books that invites us to compare our feelings with other committed readers over the centuries. The poemmay well be the only major work in the western canon that nobody can avoid for long – even if it comes down to making a decision not to read it at all, or just to give up trying.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Scott Bradfield
Of all the issues which did it for the Conservatives in July 2024, no issue deterred life-long Tories more than the failure to control migration. So it was appropriate then that this subject formed the basis of Kemi Badenoch’s first major policy speech since her election as leader. Ahead of tomorrow’s release of migration statistics,
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Philip Hensher |Matthew Lynn |Mark Galeotti |Scott Bradfield
Writing the history of the novel, even covering a limited period, is a challenge. No one could possibly read every novel that has been published. Even if you read 100 a year you would scarcely scratch the surface. It isn’t like writing a history of most other subjects, where the important matters select themselves.
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Thomas Lambert |Mary Wakefield |Alexander Larman |Scott Bradfield
On Friday November 13, 2015, France suffered the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. In quick succession, gunmen and suicide bombers struck the outer concourse of Paris’s Stade de France; then the pretty canal-side cafés and restaurants of the tenth arrondissement; then, most notoriously, the Bataclan theater, where the doors were blocked and, over the course of an hour, ninety people massacred.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Joseph Moreno |Scott Bradfield |FoodI will always |Olivia Potts
The effort to bankrupt, disgrace and banish Donald J. Trump to a jail cell in Riker’s Island has instead helped pave his road right back to the Oval Office. The unprecedented abuse of the American legal system fueled plenty of cable news coverage, but it also alienated the electorate.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Scott Bradfield |Charlie Gammell |Neal Pollack |Douglas Murray
Hollywood didn’t kill Dorothy Parker, but booze probably did. In fact, if Hollywood hadn’t paid her so well to spend so much time at home, she couldn’t have afforded the booze — as well as maintain a lifelong ability to insult almost everyone she loved while still earning their (sometimes reluctant) affection.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Scott Bradfield |FoodI will always |Olivia Potts |Martin Vander Weyer
“Dave McCormick won. Bob Casey lost. Dems can’t handle it. Don’t let them get away with this scheme…”I got this text a few hours ago, and before texting back, “Stop,” as I’ve done about a thousand times over the course of the last month, I tapped the Senate GOP’s link to learn Pennsylvania’s incumbent Democratic senator, “Punxsutawney Bob” Casey (so-called because of allegations he only comes out of hiding when it’s re-election time), is not going back into his hole quietly.
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Nov 13, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Scott Bradfield
Dorothy Parker in Hollywood Gallery Books, pp.304, 20 Hollywood didn’t kill Dorothy Parker, but booze probably did. In fact, if Hollywood hadn’t paid her so well to spend so much time at home, she couldn’t have afforded the booze – as well as maintain a lifelong ability to insult almost everyone she loved while still earning their (sometimes reluctant) affection.
