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Arts & books

Issue 168 March 2010

What makes Britain laugh?


24th February 2010 - Issue 168 Free entry

Why do British comedians not talk about black people? Is a Madeleine McCann joke ever OK? And when is a Hitler moustache funny?

Paddling in the shallows


24th February 2010 - Issue 168 Free entry

Dave Eggers, one of the most powerful figures in current American writing, has tackled Hurricane Katrina. But he fails to get under the skin of New Orleans

The limits of genius


24th February 2010 - Issue 168

Michael Scammell’s authorised life of Arthur Koestler was intended to restore the reputation of Stalinism’s great scourge. Instead, Koestler emerges as a monster

Cultural notebook: the real Pete Doherty


24th February 2010 - Issue 168 Free entry

More strange stories from the world of Pete Doherty surface. But he’s neither tragic nor demonic: the truth is sadder and simpler

Unnatural selection


24th February 2010 - Issue 168

An elegant new book by one of the world’s most important cognitive scientists is an all-out assault on Darwinism. Unfortunately, its arguments are simply wrong

Private view: Chris Ofili


24th February 2010 - Issue 168

The mid-career retrospective of the paintings of Chris Ofili at Tate Britain is masterful, breathtaking and beautiful

Performance notes: obscure opera


24th February 2010 - Issue 168

Domingo may be at Covent Garden this March, but for a real operatic adventure head for the backstreets of Bloomsbury

No escape


24th February 2010 - Issue 168

One company’s work with ex-offenders

How to spend it


24th February 2010 - Issue 168

Four extracts from diaries, letters and books

Widescreen: the end of stardom


24th February 2010 - Issue 168 Free entry

Does the popularity of 3D films and the fashion for casting unknown actors spell the end of stardom? No—and here’s why not

Issue 167 February 2010

The return of the master


24th February 2010 - Issue 167 Free entry

Martin Amis’s twelfth novel reimagines the sexual revolution as a comedy of manners, with deadly serious intentions

Smallscreen: the best British sitcom


24th February 2010 - Issue 167 Free entry

TV’s history of nurturing talent has led to some of the best shows ever. Thank heavens for the few still willing to think long term

The dandy of Strawberry Hill


24th February 2010 - Issue 167

A celebrity of the 18th century, Horace Walpole divided polite society. Now the re-opening of his home and a show at the V&A will restore his reputation, says Duncan Fallowell

The making of the middle east


24th February 2010 - Issue 167

If you want to understand who the modern Arabs are and how their relationship with the western world has evolved, you will not find a better book

Cultural notebook


24th February 2010 - Issue 167 Free entry

Given what technology can now achieve, the enduring crapness of airplanes must serve some psychological purpose. Mustn’t it?

The greatest artist in the world


24th February 2010 - Issue 167 Free entry

An art market boom generally catapults a relatively unknown artist into the major league, with suitable price tag. I think I know who the next superstar will be

Guilt, victimhood and the German ’68ers


24th February 2010 - Issue 167

A fascinating intellectual history of the 1968 generation of radicals in West Germany charts their descent into the very thing they professed to loathe

Yearning for chaos


24th February 2010 - Issue 167

Danny Kruger reports from his company’s work with ex-offenders

Of truth and beauty


24th February 2010 - Issue 167

Two extracts about English attitudes to art

Widescreen


24th February 2010 - Issue 167

Last month in Prospect, Colin MacCabe argued that the UK Film Council was a failure. Film expert Charles Gant disagrees

Issue 166 January 2010

Illuminating the human heart


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

The Nobel winner of 2006 has defied the prize’s curse to write a rich novel that is both a tragic love story and an epic poem, nestled in its setting of Istanbul

Breaking the British movie myth


24th February 2010 - Issue 166 Free entry

The government is wasting millions chasing the dream of a Hollywood-style film industry—at the expense of genuine innovation. But there is a solution

Cultural notebook


24th February 2010 - Issue 166 Free entry

Why do celebrity chefs tell us how to cook Christmas lunch every year? Well, it’s all a big literary-theoretical experiment

Dispatches from hell


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

At the peak of his powers, TS Eliot battled misery and melancholia. This second volume of his letters offers a fascinating guide to these harrowing years

Smallscreen


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

If Sky is backing it, chances are that 3D entertainment is here to stay. Let’s hope the quality of content can keep up this time

Performance notes


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

2010 is the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s and Schumann’s births—and offers a timely reminder of the piano recital’s decline

Danish cartoons: the tyranny of moderation


24th February 2010 - Issue 166 Free entry

An important new book on the Danish cartoons affair has been censored by the continuing threat of violence. It is another defeat for free speech

Unknown to the world


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

Danny Kruger reports from his company’s work with ex-offenders

The way we were


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

Three seasonal diary extracts

Widescreen


24th February 2010 - Issue 166

Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame has the world at his feet. Can he learn from Lauren Bacall and take control of his destiny?

Issue 165 December 2009

Cultural notebook: days of the undead


24th February 2010 - Issue 165 Free entry

Our fascination with horror films reflects the anxiety of the middle classes—caught between proletariat zombies and vampire toffs

The kindness of witches


24th February 2010 - Issue 165 Free entry

Stieg Larsson’s fiction replaces Sweden’s socialist dream with an individualist nightmare. Is this what has made him the country’s biggest literary phenomenon?

Does terrorism work?


24th February 2010 - Issue 165 Free entry

A new book offers a sober corrective to some recent misconceptions about terrorism, says Islamist expert Malise Ruthven

Tales of talent and cruelty


24th February 2010 - Issue 165

A biography of one of America’s greatest short-story writers eloquently depicts his battles with drink and depression, but fails to link that man to his art

The constitution will be televised


24th February 2010 - Issue 165 Free entry

America’s longest-running and most influential prime-time television drama is an unlikely export triumph, writes Joy Lo Dico: a hymn to the constitution and to dreams of justice

Performance notes


24th February 2010 - Issue 165

What is the English National Opera for? Visits to the London Coliseum and a new official history have left me none the wiser

Private view


24th February 2010 - Issue 165 Free entry

An exciting exhibition of “outsider” art also warns of the dangers of bringing this genre too far into the mainstream

No gangster


24th February 2010 - Issue 165 Free entry

An ex-offender's life

The way we were


24th February 2010 - Issue 165

The fine art of breakfasting

Widescreen


24th February 2010 - Issue 165

I went to see a franchise horror movie hoping for mind-emptying mayhem. What I got was a shoddy dig at US domestic politics