Times Literary Supplement

Times Literary Supplement Where curious minds meet S. Eliot’s poetry, in the early years of last century. Times have changed and so has the TLS, but not the quality of its writers. N.

"Verging sometimes on the catalogue, of personal relations and environments, uninspired by any glimpse beyond them and untouched by any genuine rush of feeling” was the TLS’s verdict on T. So far from taking it personally, Eliot responded by writing some of his most famous critical essays for the paper, in the 1920s, when TLS readers were also treated to the stylish reviews written by another of i

ts legendary Editor, Bruce Richmond’s discoveries: a “clever young woman” called Virginia Woolf. They come from the world-wide republic of letters, and in the past thirty years alone, high points have included essays, reviews and poems by Italo Calvino, Mavis Gallant, Patricia Highsmith, Milan Kundera, Philip Larkin, Mario Vargas Llosa, Joseph Brodsky, Gore Vidal, Juan Goytisolo, Christopher Hitchens, Orhan Pamuk, Martin Amis, Geoffrey Hill, Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon. Internationally renowned scholars such as Christopher Ricks, George Steiner and Claude Rawson rub shoulders in our pages with front-rank novelists such as A. Byatt, Ali Smith and Joyce Carol Oates; the acclaimed biographers, Hermione Lee, Graham Robb, Jonathan Bate and Roy Foster with heavy-hitting philosophers Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennett and Martha Nussbaum. Groundbreaking scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Tim Flannery make the extraordinary accessible alongside the discoveries of the explorers Redmond O’Hanlon and Robin Hanbury-Tenison. Stefan Collini, Edmund White, Elaine Showalter, Clive James – whom more than one reader has dubbed “the Montaigne of our day” – and A. Wilson bring authority and wit and a welcome touch of waspishness to everything they write, not least in the TLS, where they make regular appearances. The TLS may not always have got it right – see, for example, some of the spectacular misjudgements of earlier years, on Eliot’s Prufrock, or Joyce’s Ulysses. But the hits are much more spectacular than the misses. In the course of its history the paper has earned an unrivalled reputation for intellectual rigour, impartiality – and curiosity: a reputation it keeps to this day. Reviewing the books that matter, examining the questions central to our culture, the Lit Supp, as it has been known to generations of readers, provides a unique record of developments in literature, politics, scholarship and the arts, and brings a unique seriousness to bear on the major intellectual debates of our time. The TLS is the only literary weekly – in fact the only journal – to offer comprehensive coverage not just of the latest and most important publications, in every subject, in several languages – but also current theatre, opera, exhibitions and film. And every week, readers of the TLS will find (as well as new poems, occasional short stories and regular columns such as Hugo Williams’s much-loved – and sometimes hated – “Freelance”) some two-dozen detailed reviews of new books in a wide range of subjects. If you care about the life of the mind, you will certainly find it indispensable.

One week until the winner of the TLS Ackerley Prize at is announced at Reference.Point. Tickets available here: tinyurl....
18/07/2024

One week until the winner of the TLS Ackerley Prize at is announced at Reference.Point. Tickets available here: tinyurl.com/ana57ymp

'Four of the top ten killers in the US today are chronic diseases linked to the Standard American Diet'The food industry...
17/07/2024

'Four of the top ten killers in the US today are chronic diseases linked to the Standard American Diet'

The food industry’s deadly impact on public health

About 150 years ago a family of starving Swedish tenant farmers boarded a ship bound for America and ended up in Nebraska – a state that had been admitted

'We should be uncomfortable about a world in which health benefits accrue to the rich rather than being shared equally'A...
15/07/2024

'We should be uncomfortable about a world in which health benefits accrue to the rich rather than being shared equally'

A provocative study of the weight-loss drug Ozempic

There is no mystery to long life: don’t smoke, don’t drink too much, get a good night’s sleep, stay active, stay married and eat a healthy diet, ideally

'Just under the surface these essays add up to a picture of men and women living ordinary but none the less interesting ...
15/07/2024

'Just under the surface these essays add up to a picture of men and women living ordinary but none the less interesting and remarkable lives'

Collections of scholarly articles rarely receive much attention outside a narrow band of specialists. The collected papers of Ewen Bowie (E.P. Warren

'The new political movements strengthened equality for the majority at the expense of minorities'The pitfalls of politic...
14/07/2024

'The new political movements strengthened equality for the majority at the expense of minorities'

The pitfalls of political upheaval

On the eve of independence Thomas Paine assured American revolutionaries, “We have it in our power to begin the world over again … The birthday of a new

'The Roman world experienced what Elliott calls a “catastrophe flip” – a small change that takes a system across a thres...
13/07/2024

'The Roman world experienced what Elliott calls a “catastrophe flip” – a small change that takes a system across a threshold that triggers a sudden crisis'

Rome and the world’s first pandemic

In 165 CE, Roman forces briefly invaded the Parthian Empire and occupied Mesopotamia. Ancient narratives tell us that the returning army brought back a

'All too often the US opposed social democrats because it wrongly thought them communist dupes'Latin America’s long batt...
13/07/2024

'All too often the US opposed social democrats because it wrongly thought them communist dupes'

Latin America’s long battle between democrats and dictators

In March 1956 Jesús de Galíndez “disappeared” in the heart of Manhattan. A Basque nationalist who had opposed Franco in Spain, Galíndez had initially

'Since Athens was at war for two out of every three years during the fifth century BCE, hearing epitaphioi would have be...
12/07/2024

'Since Athens was at war for two out of every three years during the fifth century BCE, hearing epitaphioi would have been a familiar experience'

How funeral orations for the war dead shaped Athenian society

In ancient Athens it was the duty of every male citizen to fight in the army, and commemorating those who had laid down their lives for their city was a

'Paintings of Friedrich in his Dresden studio show bare walls but for a couple of spare palettes, and no reference drawi...
12/07/2024

'Paintings of Friedrich in his Dresden studio show bare walls but for a couple of spare palettes, and no reference drawings'

The meticulous technique of a nineteenth-century great

“Friedrich, the most German of all German painters, has been forgotten by Germany”, wrote the Norwegian art historian Andreas Aubert in the Berlin journal

'Henry VIII had a copy of the Venetian Talmud sent to England in the hope that rabbinical rulings might provide argument...
11/07/2024

'Henry VIII had a copy of the Venetian Talmud sent to England in the hope that rabbinical rulings might provide arguments for his divorce from Catherine of Aragon'

The rise and reinvention of a maritime superpower

In 828, Venice boldly affirmed its place on the Christian map of medieval Europe when a pair of knavish Venetian merchants stole the remains of St Mark

Venice down the centuries; Delmore Schwartz’s poetic genius; on Ozempic; the pitfalls of political upheaval; Alice Munro...
11/07/2024

Venice down the centuries; Delmore Schwartz’s poetic genius; on Ozempic; the pitfalls of political upheaval; Alice Munro’s complicity – and much more.

This week’s TLS is out now: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/issues/current-issue/

'The marvellous ‘Two Public School Teachers’ shoot us a slightly weary gaze, as if we have interrupted them marking a st...
11/07/2024

'The marvellous ‘Two Public School Teachers’ shoot us a slightly weary gaze, as if we have interrupted them marking a stack of papers'

In 1924 the philosopher Alain Locke (1885–1954) commissioned Winold Reiss to illustrate a special issue of Survey Graphic announcing the “New Negro”,

'What does it matter, then, if we do pick up “The Turn of the Screw” an hour or so before bedtime?'Virginia Woolf on Hen...
10/07/2024

'What does it matter, then, if we do pick up “The Turn of the Screw” an hour or so before bedtime?'

Virginia Woolf on Henry James's ghost stories from the TLS of December 22, 1921

It is plain that Henry James was a good deal attracted by the ghost story, or, to speak more accurately, by the story of the supernatural. He wrote at least eight of t...

'In 416, the two main contenders to be ostracized (Alcibiades and Nikias) teamed up against another candidate, Hyperbolo...
08/07/2024

'In 416, the two main contenders to be ostracized (Alcibiades and Nikias) teamed up against another candidate, Hyperbolos, and got their supporters to vote against him instead. Alcibiades and Nicias escaped scot-free and Hyperbolos went into exile. It was a classic case of what can happen when a two-horse race is changed into a three-horse race. So far as we know, with the genie out of the bottle, the Athenians never held another vote for ostracism again.'

The mismatch between the different political parties, in their share of the popular vote and the number of seats they actually won in the recent general

We are pleased to announce the shortlist for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024. Join us for an evening of literary celebration...
26/06/2024

We are pleased to announce the shortlist for the TLS Ackerley Prize 2024.

Join us for an evening of literary celebration, wine and music. Tickets are £5 (£3 for students/unwaged) and can be booked here: https://tinyurl.com/ana57ymp

Our Poem of the Week is ‘Therimenes’ by Fergus Allen.⁠⁠This poem was first published in the TLS of October 3, 2003 (issu...
25/06/2024

Our Poem of the Week is ‘Therimenes’ by Fergus Allen.⁠

This poem was first published in the TLS of October 3, 2003 (issue no. 5244) and then in Gas Light & Coke (2006).

'If there is any good that can come from this tragedy, it is that it might prompt us to pay closer attention to what min...
25/06/2024

'If there is any good that can come from this tragedy, it is that it might prompt us to pay closer attention to what miniature images can tell us about the ancient world.'

Mary Beard on Miniature Romans

It is several months since I have done one of my "hang on a minute" posts in reaction to some new and much-hyped archaeological discovery. But the

Damon Galgut: 'It has been described as a masterpiece, and why would I not want to read an African masterpiece?'Twenty-f...
25/06/2024

Damon Galgut: 'It has been described as a masterpiece, and why would I not want to read an African masterpiece?'

Twenty-five TLS writers share their summer reading

Mary Beard I have a limited ambition for the holidays (a boat in the Aegean for me): one novel I’ve been meaning to read, and one work-related book that I

“I guess I wanted to be a storyteller, but I wanted other people to finish the story.” Lucy Davies on a Cindy Sherman re...
25/06/2024

“I guess I wanted to be a storyteller, but I wanted other people to finish the story.”

Lucy Davies on a Cindy Sherman retrospective – and a rare interview with the artist herself

If there is a single picture that captures the mysteries of Cindy Sherman, the subject of a stirring new retrospective at the Museum of Cycladic Art in

'Eight million Sudanese have fled their homes and 25 million are at risk from starvation.'Lindsey Hilsum: A letter from ...
21/06/2024

'Eight million Sudanese have fled their homes and 25 million are at risk from starvation.'

Lindsey Hilsum: A letter from Omdurman, Sudan

Rasheed Ahmed was fortunate to have left Omdurman before the mortar came through the roof of his house. A thoughtful man in his early fifties, wearing a

'The threat of a German invasion was apparently less stressful than the threat of Stanley Spencer dropping by.'Sarah Wat...
21/06/2024

'The threat of a German invasion was apparently less stressful than the threat of Stanley Spencer dropping by.'

Sarah Watling on a story of collaboration and artistic ruthlessness

Who counts as an artist? The curators of Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An untold story at the Charleston gallery in Lewes have taken a generous

'Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad are now wastelands of defeated hope.'Amir-Hussein Radjy on the poisonous legacy of ...
21/06/2024

'Cairo, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad are now wastelands of defeated hope.'

Amir-Hussein Radjy on the poisonous legacy of Nasser, Egypt’s nationalist dictator

If there has been a single constant force in Arab politics over the past century, it has been the Palestinian problem. Much of Arab history in the

Twenty-five TLS writers – including Mary Beard, Margaret Drabble, Libby Purves and more – share their summer reading
20/06/2024

Twenty-five TLS writers – including Mary Beard, Margaret Drabble, Libby Purves and more – share their summer reading

Mary Beard I have a limited ambition for the holidays (a boat in the Aegean for me): one novel I’ve been meaning to read, and one work-related book that I

'The average time spent looking at a work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is seventeen seconds – so what is anyone get...
19/06/2024

'The average time spent looking at a work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is seventeen seconds – so what is anyone getting out of this?'

Lisa Hilton on the relationship between ‘loveliness and lucre’

Is art a luxury or a necessity? Both these exceptionally accomplished books seek to answer the question, from very different perspectives. Bianca Bosker’s

'Sally Bowles was Isherwood’s own boy—girl alter ego, his female double, sleeping her way to nowhere.'Zachary Leader: Is...
19/06/2024

'Sally Bowles was Isherwood’s own boy—girl alter ego, his female double, sleeping her way to nowhere.'

Zachary Leader: Isherwood’s characters grew out of real-life experience

Christopher Isherwood died in 1986 in Santa Monica at the age of eighty-two. Ten years before his death, he found (or so he thought) the perfect doctor.

'People and events here have a peculiar, almost ethereal transparency, as though bathed in a medium where one thing perm...
19/06/2024

'People and events here have a peculiar, almost ethereal transparency, as though bathed in a medium where one thing permeates another.'

Our original review of Mrs Dalloway from the TLS of May 21, 1925 is now unlocked and free to read.

All Mrs Woolf’s fiction shows such an instinct for experiment that we may have to show cause why this new book should be called peculiarly experimental. Jacob’s Room, ...

'No party really seems to think that the Arts and Humanities are central to how we talk and debate – central, in other w...
14/06/2024

'No party really seems to think that the Arts and Humanities are central to how we talk and debate – central, in other words, to politics'

I don’t know who reads the party manifestos at a General Election, or indeed what they are for. I guess that, if a party thinks it might win the election,

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