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The best books on Ukraine and Russia
Thousands of people have been killed since 2014 in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in a war that has been rife with disinformation, misleading narratives and false flag operations. Here Serhii Plokhy, Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University, recommends books to better understand the conflict, from an introductory work by an eminent historian to the latest work of some of Ukraine’s leading novelists. Read more
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Out There by Kate Folk
…tightly constructed and spectacularly mind-bending stories that ingeniously pair everyday challenges and outlandish predicaments, ranging from hilarious to terrifying. Folk writes with unnerving matter-of-factness as she veers into Poe- and Shirley Jackson-like horror or turns to the poignantly fantastic in the mode of George Saunders or Kelly Link … Folk’s shocking, grim, funny, and tender stories deliver astringently incisive perceptions of human longing and contradictions. Read more
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Waterstones acquires Blackwell’s, the UK’s biggest independent bookseller
The UK’s largest book chain, Waterstones, has acquired the country’s largest independent bookseller, Blackwell’s, ending 143 years of family ownership and signalling a further concentration of the bookselling industry. Read more
Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier
Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, historian Jonusas debuts with an impressive and deeply unsettling account of the Benders, a family of German immigrants who killed at least 10 people after they settled in Kansas’s Labette County in 1870 … Radiant prose enhances the page-turning narrative. The combination of true crime and a vivid depiction of frontier life earn this a spot on the shelf next to David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Read more
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‘A symbol of new beginning’: Mosul’s university library reopens
The university library in Mosul, which was bombed by Islamic State militants, has opened its doors again, describing itself as a “lighthouse of knowledge” which is “once again burning bright”. Founded in 1921, the library was ransacked and bombarded by missiles during the IS occupation of the city, with an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 books and manuscripts destroyed. It was reopened on 19 February by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with financial support from Germany and book donations from around the world, including over 20,000 from the UK. Read more
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The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart
Done right, the combination of two archetypal genre stories into something new can work brilliantly … The Paradox Hotel offers a memorable case study in how to bridge two genres in a way that satisfies readers of both … Throughout The Paradox Hotel Hart creates a sense of a place on the cusp of being irrevocably changed—and of a style of living that may have exceeded its viability … In the end, The Paradox Hotel succeeds as both a mystery and as a story involving time travel. Read more
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Words: Technologies of Power
In our brave new world of online surveillance and 280 character missives, of endless scrolling and shortening attention spans, a printed book can’t be traced like your virtual activity can — protecting our cognitive liberty and making it more valuable than ever. Books still are, as Stephen King (another proud writer of many a banned book) called them, “our most uniquely portable magic.” They are dangerous tools of destruction indeed — because the best ones break down the barriers that separate you and me. In other words, they humanize us. Read more
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Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett
… a profound and very funny book about growth and promise, and how not to kill them off; about women reading and writing and how they survive. Read more
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Scholar of the Early Republic Wins American History Book Prize
Alan Taylor, the author of “American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850,” has been named the winner of the New-York Historical Society’s 2022 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize, which is awarded each year for the best work of American history or biography. Read more
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