Poetry review – A History of Western Music: Rosie Johnston is impressed by August Kleinzahler’s skill at conveying the experience of listening to music: https://t.co/8lA3vNawPE
Unseen Photography from the 19th Century. Review by Barbara Lewis. Belgium, which declared independence in 1830, became a forerunner in photographic identification and is home to the oldest preserved mugshots, dating from 1843: https://t.co/omK7OipXnQ
The films of Frederick Wiseman. Review by Alan Price. Why has it taken me so long to get round to watching the films of Frederick Wiseman? Well that’s because of their physical media inaccessibility and rare screenings in the cinema: https://t.co/2WTI07lUJE
European forests essay. By Stephanie Sears. Europe’s closest ally may be its forests: ”A culture is no better than its woods.” W.H.Auden: https://t.co/sFl7oupfqO
Worlds Apart. Review by Julia Pascal. This memoir is an astonishing chronicle of recent German history seen through the eyes of a girl born in the East and brought up in the West. Except that she was not brought up at all: https://t.co/nJn39MmdLa
Quarantaine. Review by Barbara Lewis. Flanders in its golden age produced the painters Van Eyck and Memling. Around six centuries on, the work of Belgian conceptual artist Honoré ?’O, at first sight bears no relation to his aesthetic forebears: https://t.co/J6fhH4biiw
Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B. Review by Barbara Lewis. Popular wisdom maintains that the appeal of the traditional whodunnit is in its reassuring message that problems will be solved and justice will be done: https://t.co/uEFW11Bkir
Poetry review – Endless Forms Most Beautiful: Thomas Ovans dips into Norbert Hirschhorn’s new selection of prose-poems and finds they come in a wide range of forms and flavours: https://t.co/tt6i8D377u
Poetry review – Breathing: Gareth Writer-Davies reviews a collection by David Van-Cauter which deals painstakingly and intimately with some of life’s tough questions: https://t.co/OLIvx36mPl
Mephisto, Colonel Redl, Hanussen. Review by Alan Price. This remarkable loose trilogy covers a wide span of Mitteleuropa history from the gradual disintegration of the Habsburg Empire to the start of WW1 and the beginnings of Nazism: https://t.co/aVmE7xkxGe
Poetry review – The Invisible Man's Tailor: Neil Elder has been looking forward to a first collection from Patrick Meeds and now he has a chance to review it: https://t.co/ivTYYJmSmd
Nordic Noir. Review by Barbara Lewis. Beyond “The Scream,” Edvard Munch’s gift to art was his innovative approach to woodcuts, which involved cutting them into pieces so they could be coated in different colours: https://t.co/4qDQZhUBVL
Poetry review – The Apotheosis of Music: Daniel Barbiero reviews a new translation of poems by Witold Wirpsza and considers the effect of history on the poet’s work: https://t.co/EXJxSzVcjL
Poetry review – Believing in the Planet: Alwyn Marriage welcomes a new collection by Myra Schneider, dealing with many themes from the environmental to the personal: https://t.co/pRr467fNZQ
Jobsworth. Review by Barbara Lewis. Libby Rodliffe is not only a performer, she is a writer. As a performer, she takes on more than ten roles, one of which is Bea, who has four jobs: https://t.co/XvaVf4Bq34
Poetry review – Bridging Time 1944-2024: Thomas Ovans is both intrigued and moved by Patricia Townsend’s sonnet sequence incorporating and responding to wartime letters from her father: https://t.co/7fg5PJLOml