Sophie Benbelaid writes movingly about her relationship with Josie Silver’s novel The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, ‘the book I wish my younger self had access to as reassurance that the turmoil I felt inside of me was normal’.
Columns
The 1%: Autism, Sexual Assault and Me
In this breathtakingly honest account, Meg Hopkins shares her experiences of sexual assault at university, and how the perpetrators took advantage of her autistic traits.
Minority Report: TOTAL BETRAYAL (4) – A Bungled Evacuation
In the final instalment of his series on Afghanistan, Oliver Buckingham highlights how mismanaged the final evacuation was, and imagines the future of those left behind.”
Must Read Voraciously to Improve Style: Monsters Are Made, Not Born
Sophie Benbelaid looks at Gaston Leroux’s Gothic mystery The Phantom of the Opera and argues that in the case of Erik, monsters are made, not born.
Minority Report: TOTAL BETRAYAL (3) – With Friends like These
The betrayal of Afghanistan provided a glimpse of an isolationist United States. Oliver Buckingham explores how a reduced foreign policy will affect America’s treatment of its allies.
The Good Grief Notes: Chapter 1 Let’s Talk
In the first installment of The Good Grief Notes, Carol Jones explores how our attitudes towards grief may have changed over the past 18 months.
Illustration by Clara Wright.
Must Read Voraciously to Improve Style: The Mania of Dark Academia
This week, Sophie Benbelaid explores the rise of the dark academia genre through the lens of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
The 1%: Autism in The Big Bang Theory
Meg Hopkins criticises The Big Bang Theory for their portrayal of Sheldon’s autism.
Minority Report: TOTAL BETRAYAL (2) – The Future We Chose
In this second instalment of his series on Afghanistan, Oliver Buckingham discusses how the American exit was the product of cynical political priorities, rather than coherent military strategy.
Must Read Voraciously to Improve Style: Fourteen Days of Solitude
Sophie Benbelaid compares her solitude during a fortnight of quarantine in Moscow with that of the Buendía family from García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.