PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
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Extended trot
STEVEN ANDREW recommends an informed and personable work that contains as many ommisions as it does analyses
NO MINCING WORDS: Anti-Nato graffiti on a wall during the bombing of Novi Sad in 1999. Total civilian casualties of Nato bombings of Yugoslavia are estimated at probably 2,000 killed and about 6,000 wounded
[Darko Dozet/CC]
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Full of mysterious religious references and radical sound design, the Scottish duo’s new offering is candidate for album of the year, suggests SIMON DUFF
MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024
Tariq Ali, Verso, £35
HAVING thoroughly enjoyed Tariq Ali’s earlier autobiographical book, Street Fighting Years, and having more than appreciated many other works such as his widely read and timely The Clash Of Fundamentalisms, it’s nice to report that this latest momentous tome was in no way a disappointment.
That said, it’s very different from Ali’s earlier life story in that it is a huge, unwieldy and somewhat chaotic collection. It is fair to say that Ali is not without a shortage of interests — or a shortage of words for that matter — and I won’t even attempt to list the number of subjects covered in an account by no means chronological and seamless in treatment.
Ali’s movement away from more overtly ideological forms of Trotskyism is documented by notes on internal struggles within the International Marxist Group which he left to join a leftwards-shifting Bennite Labour Party, and by his relationship with key international figures such as Ernest Mandel.
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