BRENT CUTLER recommends a sober examination of the real risks and true merits of nuclear energy, and an exposure of the capitalist system as an obstacle to human betterment
Dispassionate, considered, forensic
TOM KING recommends a collection of acutely observed writings, from the personal to the political, by Hilary Mantel
MORDANT: Hilary Mantel
A deeply pleasing festive crime wave
MARIA DUARTE picks the best and worst of a crowded year of films
JOSEPHINE BARBARO welcomes a diverse anthology of experiences by autistic women that amounts to a resounding chorus, demanding to be heard
PAUL BUHLE recommends an eminently useful book that examines the political opportunities for popular anti-fascist intervention
PETER MASON is entertained by the autobiography of Charlie Harper, one of punk’s most enduring figures
Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books
by Hilary Mantel
(4th Estate, £16.99)
HILARY MANTEL, most famous for her epic Thomas Cromwell trilogy — Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light — first made a name for herself on the 1980s book-reviewing scene.
It was very different in those days, she writes, with more daily papers “and they made space for books.”
She wrote for the Listener, the Literary Review and, forgive her, the Spectator. But she found a home at the London Review of Books (LRB), for which she has written ever since.
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