Good morning. This week brought the two-year anniversary of the Hamas attack into Israel and the war in Gaza. The past 48 hours has seen a ceasefire deal many hope could bring a halt to the violence – though as one diplomat involved in the talks said: “The tragedy is that this could have all been agreed 20 months ago.”
This weekly round-up of essential reads begins with a sober view on the conflict from the Guardian’s global diplomatic editor. There’s also some lighter fare.
I hope you find something here that makes you think.
1. Diplomacy’s lowest point: how the Israel-Gaza conflict was mishandled
Donald Trump may have claimed success in Gaza, but as Patrick Wintour writes, “The destruction, the death toll and the spillover of the conflict into other countries is a monument to shame diplomacy and what remains of international law.”
There’s a growing consensus across the west … “that this conflict was desperately mishandled, including by European leaders who initially ceded responsibility to a US Democratic administration that romanticised modern Israel”.
And a major shift in thinking: “We have changed the mindset,” French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said after Arab states in September backed the exclusion of Hamas from Gaza. “Everyone now sees Hamas for what they are: a terrorist organisation.”
How long will it take to read: about five minutes
Further reading: the Guardian’s global series marking this week’s anniversary, including this piece bearing witness to the 18,457 children on Gaza’s “far from comprehensive” list of war dead.
And if you want more on Trump … who may or may not have won the Nobel peace prize by the time you read this, Andrew Roth’s analysis on how the US president’s desire for the award is driving global diplomacy is fascinating.
2. When you find out your boyfriend is working for the IRA
In 1996, police crashed into the London home that Mary Attenborough, an academic (specialty: geophysical software), shared with Michael Gallagher (former civil servant, helped homeless alcoholics). When he was arrested on suspicion of IRA activity, she was shocked and indignant. Then he was charged, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
He only confessed to her after his conviction.
They’re still together. And have co-written a book, confirming, as Ireland correspondent Rory Carroll reports, that Gallagher “was, in fact, guilty – that he was an IRA fixer who facilitated multiple operations, including the Heathrow attack”.
The real betrayal? Gallagher had once wowed Attenborough by completing the Guardian’s cryptic crossword in three minutes. But while writing the book, he disclosed another decades-old secret: before speedily completing the crossword in her copy of the Guardian, he had done it earlier in his own.
How long will it take to read: two minutes
3. The armed robber who went straight
John McAvoy’s stepfather was a serious criminal. His uncle was in a heist gang – and played by Sean Bean in the film Fool’s Gold. McAvoy followed them into crime, and into England’s harshest prisons. But as Chris Godfrey finds out, in the prison gym, McAvoy found the route to turn things around.
Now he’s a serious athlete and a campaigner for prison reform. He empathises with teenagers who have romanticised criminal and gang life: “It’s a very toxic, horrible world. Once you get in it, it’s very difficult to remove yourself from it … I understand how they can get sucked into that world.”
***
“Even though I was young, I could tell the stuff he had on was very expensive.” – John McAvoy remembering meeting his stepfather, also an armed robber, at the age of eight.
How long will it take to read: eight-and-a-half minutes
4. How Jilly Cooper changed the world – one bonkbuster at a time
Apropos of flashy money: no one writes about it like Jilly Cooper, who died this week after 88 years and some 11m books sold. As Zoe Williams writes, her raunchy, tightly-written romances are a category unto themselves: not just about sex (there’s an abundance), money (also plenty of that), Tory-coded social mores (lots of those, too), or the lush, frothy beauty of the English countryside (constant). As Olivia Laing points out, significant slabs of these novels are devoted to the slog of work. And loving animals.
I bought my first Jilly Cooper in the secondhand section of a bookshop I worked at in my twenties: mid-shift, my friend Octavia and I saw our names splashed in yellow and orange across two of those soft-focus covers – hard to believe, impossible to resist.
How long will it take to read: this article? Less than four minutes. But consider, if you will, The Rutshire Chronicles audiobooks – hundreds of hours drifting through space to the fruity tones of Sherry Baines’s narration. Can’t recommend enough.
Further reading: A real-life story from this week worthy of Dame Jilly … Juhea Kim was working 80-hour weeks in New York – 31, single, and burned out. Could a string of dates with French men bring back her joie de vivre?
5. ‘Like gouging out the crown jewels’
Between 2022 and 2023, dozens of rare editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. As one Estonian prosecutor reflects: “Libraries just aren’t used to thinking of themselves as targets for major crime.” But was it low-level opportunists, or something more sinister? The Guardian’s Europe culture editor, Philip Oltermann, dives in.
The tactic: two people would use fake IDs to order up rare books from the stacks. If they were being watched, one would distract the librarians while the other walked out.
The common denominator: the work of early 19th-century Romantic poet and playwright Alexander Pushkin.
How long will it take to read: 12 or so minutes
A more local literary puzzle: Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of Australia’s best novels, then disappeared for decades. As her biographer Susan Wyndham puts it, even she wasn’t sure why. (Bonus book rec: Harrower’s In Certain Circles.)
Have a lovely weekend.
And don’t forget to vote for the 2025 Australian bird of the year.
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