The Truth About Amritsar
Why did British troops massacre hundreds of Indian civilians at Amritsar in 1919? This book explores the whole shocking story.
The Reality of Anti-Fascism
Reading The US Antifascism Reader lately gave some useful context on this much-maligned but essential movement. It's a collection of essays and speeches by historical figures from W.E.B. Du Bois to Franklin Roosevelt, Aimé Césaire to Barbara Ehrenreich, in which…
The Unsaintly Side of Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi is one of those people whose position as a hero of history is assured. He overcame the most powerful empire on earth with the power of nonviolence. He is immortalised through his quotable epigrams like “Be the change…
March 2020 Reading Roundup
Overall, it was a very good month of reading for me. Books, as usual, were the lifeboats I ran for when things got tough outside.
Inside the Syrian Conflict With Jonathan Littell
Homs is one of those places that, like Aleppo and Kandahar and Mosul, has become a byword for suffering. For years it appeared on the nightly news with images of corpses, rubble, wailing widows and intrepid reporters ducking as a…
Chernobyl Prayer: Svetlana Alexievich’s Heart-Breaking Oral History
When I visited Belarus last year, I thought I’d read some Belarusian literature, and what better writer to start with than Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. Alexievich’s Nobel win was unexpected because her books are…
March Reading Roundup
How was your reading month? Mine was pretty good, featuring a mix of political nonfiction and translated fiction from Germany and Argentina.
February Reading Roundup
After a slow January, I hit my reading stride in February. We stayed in Croatia all month, with just a quick side trip to Slovenia, so I had plenty of time to read and catch up with writing too. Here's…
January Reading Roundup
Better late than never! Here’s my reading roundup for January. It was a month in which I did a lot of travelling, driving from Greece to Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and now Croatia (via Romania again and a brief stop in…