20th Century
Best books of 2023
So here is a brief rundown of my favourite books from 2023. There were others I could have chosen too, but you have to draw
22nd December 2023
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Cold War
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20th Century
Echoes from Eternity: 25. Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America
This will probably seem a very odd inclusion into the Echoes series. After all, journalism is as ephemeral as it gets. Most of it is
6th May 2020
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20th Century
Q Marks the Spot 135 (January 2020)
Sacred Treasure If you’ve not come across it, “The Saint John’s Bible is the first handwritten, hand-illuminated Bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey in over
3rd January 2020
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20th Century
2019: Reading Highlights
These are in no particular order and I’ve picked them out as the ones I gave 5* to on my Goodreads page – you can
17th December 2019
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20th Century
Q Marks the Spot 134 (December 2019)
Sacred Treasure One man mission – a fascinating story about reviving Welsh chapels – and fascinating it gets such a high profile on the BBC
1st December 2019
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18th Century
On MLK, #MeToo, and the possibility of Pride in the Flawed
Does the legacy of a heroic struggle for justice cover over a multitude of sins?
Or does the iconic hero’s fatal flaw render him and, perhaps even his legacy, leprous?
Is it ‘one strike and you’re out’ or might the twitteratti just possibly permit nuance and, dare I say it, complexity?
26th May 2019
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20th Century
The flicker of a smile from the unsmiling man
Shostakovich is a personal hero of mine. He walked a tightrope between the Gulag and compromise in the vortex of Stalinist Russia. But more than
22nd December 2018
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20th Century
REPOST: A chance encounter with a great poet: Irina Ratushinskaya beaten but not lost
Having just heard of her death – see WAPO, Guardian, Wiki – it seems appropriate to repost my post from 2010. I can’t now remember exactly
11th July 2017
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20th Century
Q Combinations 5: Kamienska & Wyeth and a winter hope
If the last Q combo was a chronological mismatch of artist and poet, this one is seasonal. Today’s still been pretty warm for a British September
10th September 2015
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20th Century
Kim Philby & Jim Angleton and the genesis of A Wilderness of Mirrors
So here is the second of 3 promotional films for Wilderness of Mirrors (the first can be found here on the Kickstarter campaign – only a
12th April 2015
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21st Century
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to spying… Charles Cumming’s A Colder War
It hardly needs saying, but spying did not stop with the collapse of Communism. But if spying continued, it naturally follows that so did betrayal. The
12th May 2014
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20th Century
Countdown to Dallas 1963: the inside story of a Sophoclean tragedy
This is a great year for conspiracists – from the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy to the constant dribble (and occasional torrent)
13th September 2013
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