Sarah Churchwell’s Diary: My sleepless nights watching CNN, why the arts matter and fighting for truth
Last week my brain spun itself flat, like a pizza, trying to process the US election results. Now it’s just bits of dough everywhere.
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Sarah Churchwell
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Chief charlatan: the greatest imposter of the jazz age
The 1920s was a decade of swindles – and one con artist out-tricked them all.
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Marilynne Robinson’s new essay collection is acerbic – and problematic
In What Are We Doing Here?, Robinson attacks Fox News and the “dystopian media”.
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Out of time: F Scott Fitzgerald and an America in decline
The last remaining uncollected stories and a new biography show the great novelist’s grasp of history and his place…
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Is The Dollmaker the latest “rediscovered“ masterpiece?
This 1950s novel, beloved by Marilynne Robinson, has power and poignancy – but little that surprises us.
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Hillary Clinton’s haters and the glass ceiling of American politics
Whatever you think of Clinton as a politician, it's undeniable that she has been castigated for her ambition in…
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Urban sprawl: the supersized City on Fire from Garth Risk Hallberg
City on Fire is not bad, but it also is not great - and it might have been if it had…
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Sweet Caress tries to be inventive – but it can’t quite muster the energy
The novel's use of found photos is an interesting conceit but, like the legerdemain around the book’s title, emphasising…
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How nostalgic literature became an agent in American racism
From To Kill a Mockingbird to Gone With The Wind, literary mythmaking has long veiled the ugly truth of the American South.
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