Crossrail, which will eventually come to be known as the Elizabeth Line, is currently an accursed presence in central London, the most massive obstruction to traffic in an agglomeration doldrummed by such obstructions. The area around Centre Point is perpetually chaotic. Gillian Tindall’s
This book’s title suggests an admirable aspiration to present a fascinating subject in both a scholarly and an accessible style. Bob Brier is billed as ‘a world-famous Egyptologist’. His books include The Murder of Tutankhamen and Ancient Egyptian Magic, and he has hosted television programmes on ancient Egypt. Unmentioned in the author’s biography is his […]
It is the nature of estuaries to be deeply mysterious and very hard to know. Taking from both the river and the sea, they belong to neither. They form their own world in which fresh and salt water are forever churning. The dry land with its human settlements contains the estuary, but its essence is […]
Architects rarely live in houses they have designed themselves. The avant-garde modernist Berthold Lubetkin, for instance, planned the pioneering new town of Peterlee from an old farm in rural Gloucestershire. George Gilbert Scott, that eminent Victorian campaigner for Gothic architecture, designed many of his neo-medieval buildings while living in a well-appointed Georgian terrace. And small […]
These days, more than 80 per cent of us live in the suburbs, even the Queen. In 1981 her cousin, the Hon Margaret Rhodes, then living in Devon, was looking after her husband, who had cancer and needed to be close to a London hospital. ‘I was up at Balmoral and we were riding on […]
Six years ago the British Library put on a much appreciated exhibition of maps of London curated by the head of its map collections, Peter Barber. At the same time, it published a book by Peter Whitfield that, though ostensibly on the same subject, was in no sense a catalogue of the exhibition. Running these […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm