‘In matters of the heart, cats are at the heart of the matter.’

So says Oliver Soden on the explosion of cat mania in the early twentieth century.
literaryreview.co.uk/pussies-galore…

A recent inquiry found that British security services had effectively licensed the IRA assassin known as Stakeknife to commit multiple murders.

Malachi O'Doherty picks apart the murky world of spying and counterespionage in Northern Ireland.
literaryreview.co.uk/belfast-confid…

‘Creative non-fiction, I am so sick of this bullshit’, says Michael Anderson, an editor of the New York Times Book Review.

Rosa Lyster returns to its genesis.
literaryreview.co.uk/two-sides-to-t…

Close companions and confidantes, Tudor ladies-in-waiting had a unique perspective on courtly life.

Suzannah Lipscomb finds out what they saw.
literaryreview.co.uk/on-her-majesty…

Where on earth did Ziggy Stardust get his red mullet?

Deborah Levy on the Beckenham hairstylist who helped create the Starman.
literaryreview.co.uk/lady-stardust

103 cars were destroyed in the making of The Blues Brothers.

Charlie Campbell asks how it was made at all.
literaryreview.co.uk/god-drugs-music

Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.

tiffany jenkins is not so sure:

literaryreview.co.uk/the-smartphone…

India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.

@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:

literaryreview.co.uk/new-delhi-conf…

Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?

Adam Brookes investigates Asia's meth mecca.

literaryreview.co.uk/meth-comes-to-…

London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?

literaryreview.co.uk/winkle-pickers…

In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.

Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?

literaryreview.co.uk/the-case-of-th…

Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.

Norma Clarke on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:

literaryreview.co.uk/her-family-oth…

Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is freshly out of copyright and new translations are pouring forth.

Jonathan Rée explores how this intensely idiosyncratic text came into existence and considers the options for those wanting to dive deeper:

literaryreview.co.uk/silence-please

Why did the families of some victims of the London Bridge terrorist attack receive ten times more compensation than others? Julian Baggini explains:

literaryreview.co.uk/value-judgments

Dune: Part Two features Timothée Chalamet, Christopher Walken and Zendaya, among other big names, but is the real star of the show something else entirely, asks James Wham?

literaryreview.co.uk/riddle-of-the-…

Paul Gauguin has gone from icon of self-liberation to symbol of toxic masculinity. Is there any redeeming him?

literaryreview.co.uk/trouble-in-par…

The March issue of Literary Review is out now: literaryreview.co.uk

Michael Prodger on Gauguin in Polynesia
Norma Clarke on Barbara Comyns
Julian Baggini on the price of life
Mark Galeotti on Zelensky's star turn
William Whyte on building the Square Mile

and much, much more

Publishers no longer sit at antique desks in Georgian townhouses, but, asks Nicholas Clee, does that mean the industry has gone downhill?

literaryreview.co.uk/the-end-of-the…

What should I wear to meet the king?
Will I be able to pay the driver?

What new Labour prime ministers really worry about: literaryreview.co.uk/well-keep-the-…