‘While it must be stressed that Rankine’s lyric practice is capacious and stylistically thrilling, that her insights are always valuable in isolation, I am left slightly unsure of what Triage’s greater intentions are.’
Devki Panchmatia on Claudia Rankine.
‘Partly due to critical neglect, partly due to the single-minded determination to be a poet who survived on nothing but his poetry, Harrison’s prose is doomed to be a footnote in his career.’
Dane Holt on Tony Harrison’s underappreciated prose.
‘Might there be something, beyond backwater nihilism, in the vanishing of the Tree at Sycamore Gap that speaks to us about a country increasingly unable to protect its social and civic structures in the most basic ways?’
Alex Niven on the Sycamore Gap and cycles of decline.
‘Modern biology strengthens what Darwin already noted: nature experiments constantly with sex and gender, without being reduced to any single pattern.’
Alicia Kopf on Darwin, sexual selection and orchids.
From reissued classics, theory and art criticism to poetry, fiction, biography and even a memetic fiction born out of niche internet subcultures, here are The London Magazine’s Best Books of 2025.
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‘While toxic figures with millions of online followers dominate the cultural conversation about masculinity, Szalay’s novels offer a more honest account of male experience. In short, most men are losers.’
Guy Stagg reviews David Szalay’s Booker-shortlisted novel, Flesh.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Its twelfth UK edition, and its ninth at the British Library, JLF London returned this June with a weekend of expansive and cross-cultural conversation. With nearly 40 talks across literature, art, gardening, food, music and film, the programme was diverse and incisive.
‘Our London iteration is a vibrant affirmation of multilingual literary connectivities. At this volatile moment of change and transformation, we seek to make sense of our fractured world, and to explore and understand it through our shared stories.’
Namita Gokhale on JLF London 2025 at the British Library.
‘From the moment Don Quixote loses his mind from reading too many tales of chivalry, adopting their plots, characters and style for his own adventures, the modern novel has been grounded in a relationship with other texts – a process that generative AI now seems to be accelerating.’
Simon Okotie on the future of the novel.
This year, we asked our 2024 reviewers to select their favourite book of the year. Selections include Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst, Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo and A Question of Palestine by Edward Said, as well as collections of essays on French theory, re-issued aphorisms and photographic monographs.
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‘Through these dolls, I aim to challenge throwaway culture and the boundaries of traditional art, encouraging a more sustainable and playful approach to creativity.’
What’s on in London this November.
‘As I took in these surroundings, I remember feeling a sense of history and all its ages existing side by side, like the whole history of London was happening at once…’
Ben Edge’s folklore-inspired tour of London.
‘What are you doing forever is how he asked me to marry him. It was three weeks into our togetherness though we had been friends for over a year. How do you go on without that sort of love?’
The London Magazine’s guide to five of the capital’s best cultural events and shows this October: art, theatre, literature and more.
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‘I squeeze an orange to your mouth. You used to boil them to remove the bitterness from their skin. On a dare, you drank the liquid they left behind, all pith, just to impress me.’
New fiction by Navid Sinaki.
