FROM THE MAGAZINE

July 2023

Books

The great late Yeats

A century ago, W.B. Yeats won the Nobel Prize. It was the start of a remarkable late era for the Irish poet

By Anne Margaret Daniel

From the Magazine

Book Review

Why is George Orwell so difficult to pin down?

The writer is an easy man to admire and sympathize with, but a hard one to like

By Alexander Larman

From the Magazine

Book Review

Lady Caroline Lamb and the frantic bed-hopping between the great houses of England

Antonia Fraser paints a convincing, shocking picture of upper-class mores in the late eighteenth century

By Harry Mount

From the Magazine

Book Review

Lorrie Moore explores the thin veil between life and death

It’s hard to find writers ancient or modern who have used language with a music, wit and tenderness comparable to Moore’s

By Margaret Mitchell

From the Magazine

Books

The troubled relationship between Mussolini and his son-in-law

Count Galeazzo Ciano’s career is uniquely revealing as an insight into the perils of joining the family business

By Christopher Sandford

From the Magazine

Book Review

Men at War examines homosexuality among World War Two soldiers

Luke Turner’s essential thesis is that the war opened up a brief time of sexual liberation for men

By Philip Womack

From the Magazine

Music

The history of a Britney Spears masterpiece

Blackout laid the foundation for the EDM revolution, Lady Gaga’s self-referential debut album and the rest of the past fifteen years of pop

By Mitchell Jackson

From the Magazine

Theater

Taking in Good Night, Oscar and New York, New York

Good Night, Oscar takes us back to a time when, for better or worse, both foibles and felonies were targets for humor

By Robert S. Erickson

From the Magazine

Art

What the Old Masters can teach us about contemporary life

In many of their most enduring images, the Old Masters did not shy away from asking ‘Why?’ in the face of suffering and trauma

By William Newton

From the Magazine

Art

The surreal life of Leonora Carrington

The artist and writer’s life is the story of the twentieth century in microcosm

By Francesca Peacock

From the Magazine

Food

Heidi Swanson, the whole food revolutionary

In an effort to lighten up my diet for the summer, I explored the 101 Cookbooks catalogue

By Mary Kate Skehan

From the Magazine