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Why we need weird stories for a warming world

For centuries, nature has been the backdrop to human drama: a stage humanity dominates, exploits, or saves. But what if the planet isn’t just a setting, but a character in its own right – sometimes collaborator, sometimes adversary, sometimes utterly indifferent?

The Conversation

Train Dreams on Netflix is a beautiful film – but it misses the magic of the original novella

Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams was first published in 2002 as a short story in the Paris Review. When it was reissued as a standalone novella almost a decade later, it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer prize. While the book did not win that year, somewhat strangely neither did anything else…

The Conversation

How the ‘hypnagogic state’ of drowsiness could enhance your creativity

The Beatles’ song Yesterday was written in what psychologists refer to as the “hypnagogic state”. This is the twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness, when we drowsily linger in a semi-conscious state, experiencing vivid mental images and sounds.

The Conversation

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Inside the Regency ballroom: what you’d experience on a night out with Jane Austen

The ballrooms of Jane Austen’s Britain have been hailed in literature and period dramas as a marriage market where young men and women could meet and mingle. The ballroom set the scene for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy’s first encounter at Meryton’s assembly rooms in Pride and Prejudice (1813), and…

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Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through his Sherlock Holmes stories

Arthur Conan Doyle was not just one of the world’s best crime fiction writers. He was a progressive wordsmith who brought light to controversial and taboo subjects. One of those taboo subjects was male vulnerability and mental health problems – a topic of personal significance to the author.

The Conversation

The real reason states first emerged thousands of years ago – new research

Globalisation, migration, climate change and war – nation states are currently under huge pressure on many fronts. Understanding the forces that initially drove the emergence of states across the world may help explain why.

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Does BBC Civilisations get its four stories of collapse correct? Experts weigh in

In four episodes, the BBC’s Civilisations series tells the story of the fall of the Romans, Aztecs, Egypt’s Ptolemies and Japan’s Edo Samurais. The show tells these stories through a combination of recreated dramatic scenes, explanation from experts and discussions of objects from the British Museum. Here, four experts in…

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I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan: an unforgettable look at gig-economy hardship

From HBO drama Succession to Netflix reality show Selling Sunset, TV depictions of work tend to treat it as a vehicle for social betterment rather than a means to survival. The Chinese writer Hu Anyan’s arresting memoir, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, just published in an English translation, provides an…

The Conversation

Cloth nappies can inspire a feelgood factor that is the secret of long-term behaviour change

During the first COVID-19 lockdown, we were both mothers trying to stay sane. Our chats often revolved around nappies, feeding, sleep deprivation and motherhood chaos. Between laughter and exhaustion, cloth nappies kept coming up in conversation.

The Conversation

The five best TV shows about the Tudors – recommended by a historian

We seem to have an endless appetite for Tudor history. Films, TV shows, documentaries, books and exhibitions about this famous dynasty are produced every year. And more recently, the touring production Six has offered a compelling reimagining of Henry VIII’s wives as a work of musical theatre.

The Conversation

The truth about Vikings and mead might disappoint modern enthusiasts

A group of friends sit around a table sharing stories and sipping mead. The men sport beards and the women sip from drinking horns – but these aren’t Vikings, they’re modern-day hipsters.

The Conversation

Trespassers and troubadours: what to watch and listen to this week

The winner of this year’s Booker prize, Hungarian-British writer David Szalay, has often been accused of overwriting. His earlier short story collections and novels sometimes lost readers in their ornate, over-detailed descriptions. It seems he’s taken that criticism to heart. After abandoning a novel he had been working on for…

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Trespasses: little has changed for couples dating across the religious and political divide in Northern Ireland

In her 2022 novel Trespasses, Louise Kennedy captures the emotional turmoil of an intimate relationship between Cushla, a young Catholic woman, and Michael, an older married Protestant man during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Their love is difficult, not just because Michael is married but also because it is seen…

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Down Cemetery Road: Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson delight in this light conspiracy thriller

When a house mysteriously explodes in the sleepy suburbs of south Oxford and a child goes missing in the aftermath, concerned neighbour Sarah Trafford is driven to seek the truth. As an art conservator, Trafford is way out of her depth, so she enlists the help of a private investigator,…

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David Szalay’s Flesh wins the Booker prize – a deeply affecting novel about masculinity

Canadian-born, Hungarian-British writer David Szalay has won the Booker prize for his novel, Flesh. It follows the eventful life of one Hungarian, István, from his teen years to middle age.

The Conversation

How five countries are adapting to the climate crisis

Countries around the world are facing worsening heatwaves, hurricanes, droughts and floods. If current trends continue, governments need to prepare for a much hotter world with a predicted increase in global temperatures of at least 2°C, possibly up to 3°C.

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The Land Sings Back: a gorgeous exhibition of drawings inspired by ecofeminism

The Land Sings Back, a new exhibition at the Drawing Room gallery in London, is a gorgeous evocation of our rights to our lands and our symbiotic relationship with nature.

The Conversation

Why Jim Henson should be recognised as one of the foremost creators of fairytales on screen

In March 1955, an 18-year-old Jim Henson built a puppet from his mother’s old coat, a pair of blue jeans and some ping pong balls. The lizard-like creation first appeared on Afternoon, a television series on Washington D.C.’s WRC-TV, but became a regular on the five-minute Sam and Friends puppet…

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Children’s books feature tidy nuclear families – but the animal kingdom tells a different story

Animals in children’s stories are often depicted as living in neat mum, dad and children family units. Examples include Fantastic Mr Fox, 101 Dalmatians and, more recently, Peppa Pig and Bluey. But, this might leave people feeling like outsiders if they don’t come from a traditional nuclear family set-up.

The Conversation

How the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard predicted today’s AI 30 years before ChatGPT

Some writers appear so accurate in their assessment of where society and technology is taking us that they have attracted the label “prophet”. Think of J. G. Ballard, Octavia E. Butler, Marshall McLuhan, or Donna Haraway.

The Conversation

In The Eleventh Hour, Salman Rushdie writes like he’s running out of time

Salman Rushdie’s new collection of short stories urgently recollects his literary legacy. It’s as though time is increasingly uncertain so the need to tell stories is great.

The Conversation

Secret Maps at the British Library reconsiders the lines that shape our world

Maps do more than show us where we are or help us find where we need to go. They are powerful cultural documents, reflecting – and often shaping – the values, priorities and secrets of the societies that create them.

The Conversation

A brief history of comic book vampires – including a homage to Donald Trump

In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1887), an English solicitor (Jonathan Harker) is sent to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula, an aristocrat, in his move to England. When Harker discovers Dracula lying in a coffin after feeding on blood, he understands the threat that Dracula poses to England.

The Conversation

The Children’s Booker prize will include works of translation – here are five expert recommendations to get your kids excited

The buzz around the newly announced Children’s Booker has focused on its potential to “tell kids they matter”, as they get their own version of this prestigious literary prize. With children actually included in the judging process, the prize has the power to bring thousands more young people “into the…

The Conversation

Scary stories for kids: All About Ghosts is a non-fiction book that gave me all the knowledge to spot spectres

All About Ghosts by Christopher Maynard is a non-fiction book for children curious about spectral beings. First published in 1977, this book grabbed many children with the vice-like grip of a reanimated hand from a mouldering grave.

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