Latest editorial
Rescue care from the realm of sentimentality: what happens when we replace the vertical relationship between benefactor and victim with interdependence, collective organisation and struggle?
New releases by Interpol, Phoebe Bridgers, Lambchop
ANGUS REID urges us to understand the persecution of Jason Arday from a political and historical perspective, and to see the victim in human terms
Re-releases of the classics Gypsy Rhumba and Buena Vista Social Club, and a stunning album by Palestinian artist Faris Ishaq
Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
JAMIE BRITTON invites readers to visit 3,500 locals as part of a marathon artistic pub crawl
Letters of Solidarity and Friendship: Czechoslovakia 1968-71
Edited by David Parker
(Bacquier Books, £14.99)
THIS remarkable collection of letters between a Czech citizen, a medical doctor and former communist living in Czechoslovakia and a 70-year-old British man provide a unique insight into the momentous period following the Prague Spring of 1968 as seen by two individuals on either side of the Iron Curtain.
Both have in common deep humanitarian values but are ideologically far apart. Leslie Parker, a Communist Party member, clearly sees and bemoans the iniquities of capitalism, while his co-correspondent Dr Paul Zalud lives under a deformed socialist system and has lost his faith in the benefits of state socialism. Both give detailed descriptions of what life is like in their respective countries.
Tragically, they never met, but a warm relationship developed on the basis of their common sense of humour, love of language and debate. Their amicable correspondence took place over almost four years after Parker read a letter by Zalud in The Times in July 1968, only a month before Soviet tanks rolled into Prague.
MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes an engaging and nourishing account of the queer subculture that flourished in London between WWII and partial decriminalisation
The greatest threat to democracy may no longer come from political parties but from unelected tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel and his powerful Silicon Valley network, argues JOHN GREEN
STEPHEN ARNELL looks back to when protesters took to the streets in London demand to Irish liberty, fair pay and free speech — and wonders what’s changed in 138 years
