Showing 11 - 16 of 16
Tana French's ingenious new murder mystery
Life, Published on 14/10/2016
» Tana French, the superb Irish novelist who happens to write avidly about crime, used to link her books by having a minor character in one become the beleaguered protagonist of the next. Since the books all involved the Dublin Murder Squad, the beleaguered part came easily. But in her sixth novel, The Trespasser, she breaks that pattern to reunite the same pair of detectives who waded through The Secret Place, her fifth. That one took place at a swanky private school, a grating milieu where the girls' teen language ("Um, duh?") wasn't easy for the detectives, Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran, to take.
Who is Elena Ferrante? Supporters say NOYB
Life, Published on 07/10/2016
» The readers of Elena Ferrante are devoted -- and fiercely protective -- of that anonymous Italian author. That much was clear from the swift and unforgiving backlash after an investigative journalist used financial documents to suggest in an article published on Sunday that Anita Raja, an Italian translator, was behind Ferrante's books.
The rise of Hitler from dunderhead to demagogue
Life, Published on 30/09/2016
» How did Adolf Hitler -- described by one eminent magazine editor in 1930 as a "half-insane rascal", a "pathetic dunderhead", a "nowhere fool", a "big mouth" -- rise to power in the land of Goethe and Beethoven? What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred? How did this "most unlikely pretender to high state office" achieve absolute power in a once-democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror?
Loud paintings
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 13/01/2016
» Echoing the title of Paphonsak La-or's solo exhibition "Silent No More", his opening reception at Lyla Gallery in Chiang Mai on Boxing Day last year was buzzing with locals and those who had made the trip from Bangkok. Milling around, everyone in the exhibition room couldn't possibly have avoided the huge 7m-long centrepiece that comes with a shade of blue paint that is neither gloomy nor reassuring in the background. While there's a sentence in the middle, "This image is no longer available", the bottom text reads, "Love which was woven in our society leads to a great tragedy and sorrow".
In the closet -- or not
Life, Melalin Mahavongtrakul, Published on 27/08/2015
» Actress Kristen Stewart's refusal to confirm her sexuality, and a round-up of other worldwide LGBT news this month
Half a spy thriller
Life, Published on 20/10/2014
» Wars, the death of soldiers and civilians, are fought for a variety of reasons: some making more sense than others. Self defence is the most legitimate. All combatants, attempting to take the moral high ground, make that claim. Even that they are fighting God's battles.