Non-fiction
The Inside Outsiders: The Hamlet Doctrine
Most of The Hamlet Doctrine is taken up with exegeses of key philosophical and psychoanalytic interpretations of Hamlet. For readers familiar with continental philosophy and critical theory, there is much to engage with here.
Gaslighting: The Poet’s Wife by Mandy Sayer
‘Our marriage wasn’t always unhappy’: so begins this ‘memoir of a marriage’ between Australian writer Mandy Sayer and her first husband, the Afro-American poet Yusef Komunyakaa. What follows is the chronicle of a deeply troubled relationship from the point of view of the poet’s wife.
High drama, low farce: Breaking News & Murdoch’s World
After an extraordinary series of events almost unparalleled in the modern history of the media, the Select Committee called before it one of the most powerful men in the world. There, in scenes of high drama and low farce, Rupert Murdoch, the emblematic media mogul of the late twentieth century, was asked by British lawmakers to account for the crimes of his minions.
A threat then, a threat now: Stephen Ward Was Innocent, OK
The death of Stephen Ward stands as an iconic moment in British history, when the establishment, confronted by a new liberalism, had its hypocrisy exposed by a heady cocktail of female sexuality (a threat then, a threat now), race and politics.
A dangerous cynicism: The Confidence Trap & The Last Vote
Electorates are not enamoured of the idea that the nation state now has such limited power over its destiny. Democracies dependent on foreign creditors; massive multinational companies subject to few democratic controls; an international financial market with the power to decide the strength of currencies – these things sit uneasily with the idea that a nation should be able to determine its own fate and the fate of its people.