Latest editorial
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilson
Outstanding espionage series draws to a memorable close
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
RON JACOBS welcomes the translation into English of an angry cry from the place they call the periphery
GUILLERMO THOMAS recommends a useful book aimed at informing activists with local examples of solidarity in action around the world
HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come
FOR those fans who’ve followed the career of William Catesby across the previous seven novels centred around Edward Wilson’s extraordinarily grounded, cultured and left-wing British spy, his latest makes for a most satisfying read.
Loose ends are, at least in part, neatly tidied up but the first-time Catesby reader shouldn’t be fazed either, as Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man is a compelling standalone experience.
The narrative shifts across the decades, as the nonagenarian recalls his early years to his adult granddaughter — of mixed race and dual heritage, she in one of the book’s many pleasing counterpoints — as a bright Suffolk boy who won a scholarship to Cambridge.
More from this author
An absorbing metaphor for contemporary Western societies is recommended by PAUL SIMON
PAUL SIMON falls under the spell of little known authors from an island at the edge of the world
