As Britain’s death toll from Covid-19 passes 100,000, there is one burning question: why did so many have to die? Tom Clark, Gaby Hinsliff and Philip Ball chart the persistent failures—from both the chief scientists and the politicians. Former head of the Supreme Court Brenda Hale takes on the human rights sceptics and Rana Mitter asks whether China's grip on Hong Kong means the end of the historic freedoms in the city.
Knowledge of Latin may be in decline, but novels, films and documentaries about the Romans have never been more popular. We are still dimly, unconsciously, aware that our culture grew out of classical civilisation
The Russian writer's novel "Life and Fate"—often compared with "War and Peace"—was first published in English in the mid-1980s. But only now is interest taking off among a wider public
John Updike has tried and largely failed to convey the interior life of an Arab-American terrorist. Still, it is always a pleasure to watch a master at work
She pricked the pieties of Leavisite critics and feminists alike, but her fairy tales have outlived them all. They contain a black thread tying love to violence
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