Perry Anderson reviews what sounds like the definitive biography of Zhou Enlai, which is of course dominated by his complex, fear-filled partnership with Mao Zedong (great photo of them both in their youth). lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Those who wrote for daily or weekly newspapers in the late 18th century were generally looked down on as hacks, whereas the contributors to Victorian quarterlies were seen as gentlemen.’ Stefan Collini on the criticism of James Fitzjames Stephen: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘You don’t need to understand Bayesian statistics to see that a sunken vessel can’t be described as unsinkable.’ Inigo Thomas on the design, construction and sinking of Mike Lynch’s 𝘉𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘯: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/sept…

‘The bone of contention was her feeling that true performance was improvisation. “To freeze something is to kill it, in my opinion,” she says, and she never understood why the director got the final say.’ Malin Hay on Barbra Streisand’s autobiography: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

The body of Palestinian writer Walid Daqqa has yet to be released for burial since his death on 7 April. On the blog, Muna Haddad writes about the appeal on behalf of his family before the Israeli Supreme Court, and the hostile protests surrounding it. lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/sept…

‘After being demobilized in 1931, Sartre was appointed to a lycée in Le Havre, where he discovered, to his surprise, that he quite enjoyed getting surly teenagers to engage with philosophy.’ On the pod – the first chapter of Jonathan Rée’s new audiobook: lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-v…

‘Putting stand-up at the heart of a campus novel allows Camille Bordas to highlight the awkward fit between the modern university, with its risk-averse corporate structures, and creative work.’ Edmund Gordon reviews Bordas’s new novel ‘The Material’: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘There is a sort of compassion as well as a hint of camp whimsy in this cherishing of things “pre-loved” (as the charity shops put it), and the conservationist and the snob are allied in reverence for survival.’ Nicholas Penny on the decline of ‘antiques’ lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

Join us on 11 September for the second London performance of the ‘The Last Days of Franz K’. Toby Jones and Julian Rhind-Tutt will be reading from the new, uncensored translation of Kafka’s diaries, accompanied by music by Max Richter. Tickets here: eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-last-day…

Long slide, who shall abide the day of his coming incredulity governs our days Long slide, taut bow one more second you will hit it a target is in time not space ‘Long Slide (Gnomic Stanzas)’, a poem by Maureen N. McLane: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

Me for the London Review of Books on Starmer's aping of Tory policies, not least by appealing the high court's striking down of Patel and Braverman's policies suffocating the right to protest lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/sept…

‘The spy novel could seem a comforting prospect: it’s just a game, after all, played to its foregone conclusion, a cheat code for those anxious about writing another bourgeois novel.’ Brandon reads Rachel Kushner’s Booker-longlisted ‘Creation Lake’: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Every time Adalah’s legal director Suhad Bishara referred to Daqqa as an “Israeli citizen” or “the deceased”, the crowd would yell back “Terrorist!” or “Murderer!”.’ Muna Haddad on protests at the Israeli Supreme Court, from the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/sept…

‘Mao lacked the patience for consistent administration, and the experience of the world outside China (with the manners that came with it) for skilful diplomacy. He needed Zhou for these.’ Perry Anderson on a biography of Mao’s right-hand man: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘In Homer, the Greeks are forever swift, with their swift horses and their swift ships, their speed an aspect of their heroism. So, too, from its looks, was the “Bayesian”, only those swift looks were deceiving.’ Inigo Thomas on the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/sept…

‘What modern finance does, for the most part, is gamble. It speculates on the movements of prices and makes bets on their direction.’ John Lanchester on finance and the delusions of grandeur entertained by its experts: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘With a fractured electorate and an uncertain mandate, Keir Starmer and his cabinet are tiptoeing around the public realm, wary of doing anything controversial and so failing to do anything meaningful.’ Nicholas Reed Langen (Nicholas Reed Langen) on the blog: lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/sept…

‘Given the cost-of-living crisis and widespread scepticism of ministers’ probity, protests were perhaps inevitable. But no one foresaw how tenacious they would be.’ Kevin Okoth on the Finance Bill protests in Kenya: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘A dozen new or newish books listed on Amazon have “Silk Roads” as part of their title. This is evidently an idea that still has traction. After Dalrymple, it looks unmistakably on the skids.’ Ferdinand Mount on the importance of ancient trade with India: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘The shadowy realms that they inhabited, of plot and counter-plot, of concealed ambition and incipient violence, might sound exciting, but they claimed the lives of some of them.’ Lucy Wooding on Tudor and Stuart spies: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…