London Review of Books

Europe’s leading magazine of politics, literature, history and ideas, published twice a month. Follow us on Bluesky:

[London Review of Books @LRB]

We will no longer be posting on X.

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Musk offered to do to America just what he’d done for Twitter.’

Deborah Friedell on Elon Musk:
https://t.co/rtn4JNwExW

[London Review of Books @LRB]

... Daniel Lee on D-Day
Rosemary Hill (@misspegler) on Dora Carrington
Julian Bell on drawing
Blake Morrison on Abdulrazak Gurnah
Michael Wood on Mickey 17
and a poem by @ae_stallings.

Read now at https://t.co/ijxs3BI3Oh

[London Review of Books @LRB]

Issue 47.06 is now online, featuring:

Perry Anderson on neoliberalism
Tessa Hadley on Mavis Gallant
Judith Butler on Trump’s anti-trans orders
Long Ling on Beijing’s commuter city
Deborah Friedell on Elon Musk
and a cover by Jon McNaught.

Read online at https://t.co/ijxs3BI3Oh

[London Review of Books @LRB]

Also in this issue:

Ferdinand Mount on the Siege of Malta
Peter Gordon on the new translation of Capital
Alexander Bevilacqua on Ottoman Greece
@DanielHCohen on the Barclay brothers
Mary Hannity on Victorian orphans
Thom Dyke on Guantánamo Bay…

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Twitter remains for now by some way the market-leader, but its use-value is fast vanishing, as even the more sluggish old-school news and comment organisations recognise.’

Mark Sinker (@HiddenLandsc8pe) on Bluesky, from December:
https://t.co/gCTHmKm0xz

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Withdrawing basic support from people who are not considered sufficiently ill or disabled risks making them more ill or disabled.’

Arianne Shahvisi on welfare cuts, from the blog: https://t.co/Bgi0fleWDu

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘It’s not clear what message of common endeavour, if any, Starmer’s government is trying to broadcast. A commitment to growth above all else is inconsistent with slashing immigration.’

Daniel Trilling (@trillingual) on Labour’s immigration rhetoric: https://t.co/xgSd7Evixv

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘One very simple way to address a language model’s deficiencies in problem-solving is to express problems not as exercises in reasoning but in the generation of language.’

Paul Taylor (@paul3548) on DeepSeek and problem-solving AI: https://t.co/2UaPCeKOXA

[Morten Høi Jensen @MortenHoiJensen]

This, by @danielsoar in the @LRB, is one of the best essays on The Brothers Karamazov I’ve ever read:

https://t.co/wKZyNs4ugJ

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘In nearly thirty years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over six million people have been killed and more than seven million have been displaced.’

Issa Sikiti da Silva on disintegration in the DRC, from the blog: https://t.co/KCGgwcRfuk

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Before she reached her twenties, Austen imagined the wildest range of disreputable lives for her heroines and indulged her own resistance to conventionality. It isn’t hard to understand why.’

Freya Johnston on Jane Austen, juvenilia and marriage: https://t.co/RrFV8yXpZO

[London Review of Books @LRB]

Follow us on Bluesky, where we’re
‘https://t.co/xaTOjYd3Vr’:
https://t.co/FnqdSXY2Qm

Be first to read new pieces from the paper and on the blog, or listen to our podcasts.

Find and follow LRB writers with our Starter Pack: https://t.co/vneloQKWAz

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Resentment at not being treated as an equal hasn’t gone away just because the Soviet Union is no more. Vladimir Putin took office in 2000 denouncing US “tutelage” and double standards.’

Sheila Fitzpatrick on Russia in the Cold War: https://t.co/xNfTVnNbSQ

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Meloni and her lieutenants have tried to claim large chunks of traditional Italian culture: her former culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, hailed Dante as the father of right-wing thought.’

Jan-Werner Müller on Giorgia Meloni and the Italian right: https://t.co/ZmImD7Wtme

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘This government, like the last one, seems unable to put curiosity about causation before its impulse to cruelty.’

Arianne Shahvisi on the cuts to personal independence payments, from the blog: https://t.co/Bgi0fleoNW

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘A hare can be a prince. Or a hare can be a hare. The only rule of a tale is that everything gets used, even apparently superfluous details – though you’re allowed entirely superfluous ogres because ogres are cool.’

Colin Burrow on the Grimms’ folk tales: https://t.co/GlETMiYFiO

[London Review of Books @LRB]

From 3 followers to 41,300.

Follow us on Bluesky and make that 41,301: https://t.co/FnqdSXY2Qm

[John-Paul Stonard @johnpaulstonard]

Good to see the @lrb on @bluesky, a good follow, to be sure.

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘Without at least a twinge of belief, blasphemy turns into kitsch.’

Adam Mars-Jones on the French writer Dominique Fernandez, whose novels and memoir explore family, religion and his sexuality: https://t.co/hNBCHA84PX

[London Review of Books @LRB]

‘There’s nothing surprising about Trump’s attack on the universities, or on the liberal law firms that he also despises. What is shocking is the ease with which his attack has so far succeeded.’

Adam Shatz on Columbia’s capitulation, from the blog: https://t.co/nhtOyhVvjo