Save the Planet, Eat Your Pug

Posted on by Jonathan Beckman

Stuck Monkey is a highly original and lucid portrayal of the eco-catastrophe we face and a magnificently jaundiced and grumpy overview of the human race in its last days – or its last semi-civilised days. The title derives from the comical African story about catching a monkey. You leave a banana in a jar in […]

Fork in the Road

Posted on by Jonathan Beckman

It’s possible that Henry Dimbleby’s Ravenous is one of the longest and most constructive resignation letters of recent history. On the eve of the book’s publication, Dimbleby, a founder of the Leon restaurant chain and an adviser to the government on matters of food and farming, announced his departure from the Department for Environment, Food […]

A Pale View of the Tills

Posted on by Jonathan Beckman

Visiting a new supermarket is a disorienting experience. On the surface, it’s all familiar: the sliding doors, the black rubber conveyor belts, the flecked linoleum. But then you can’t find the baskets, you’re in the wrong queue, you’re not in a queue, you can’t enter this queue with a trolley. As the familiar slips, you become uncomfortably aware of the unspoken rules you might be transgressing. After all, you entered the supermarket as a customer and must

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Posted on by Jonathan Beckman

The title of Polly Barton’s second book, Porn: An Oral History, is a touch misleading. Rather than write a history of the porn industry with reference to its producers and performers, Barton has compiled a series of conversations she had with nineteen friends and acquaintances during the coronavirus lockdowns about their personal histories as porn consumers. The resulting work offers the considerable pleasure of an intelligent discussion on an inherently interesting subject – a pleasure

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