Allan Massie
Prague Calling
Notes from Underground
By Roger Scruton
Beaufort Books 244pp £14.72 order from our bookshop
Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia
By Mariusz Szczygieł (Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)
Melville House 276pp £18.99 order from our bookshop
Europe has no centre. If you had to choose one, it might as well be Prague as anywhere else. Geographically, it is central. Historically, it was there that the terrible Thirty Years War began, there that the Nazi invasion six months after the Munich Agreement made the Second World War all but inevitable, there too that the so-called Prague Spring of 1968 set in motion the slow crumbling of the Soviet Empire, as faith in Communism seeped away.
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In this month's Silenced Voices, @lucyjpop shines a light on the tragic case of Shady Habash, a filmmaker who died in an Egyptian prison in May.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/shady-habash
One study found that hoarders 'had lesions on the mesial prefrontal cortex of their brains ... Collecting and hoarding, in other words, are the results of brain damage.'
James Delbourgo explores the psychology of minimalists & collectors.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/gardens-of-emptiness
New double issue of @Lit_Review just out. Lots of incisive reviews ( including by @BurlM11 ) of a wide range of new history, politics, fiction and general books plus a nice little piece on Philip Larkin. Thoroughly recommended!