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London Review of Books Christmas Books

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Contents

Vol. 26 No. 20   ·   21 October 2004

Colm Tóibín on biographical empathy

  • My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy  Buy this book
  • Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn  Buy this book

Letters

Ilan Pappe, Maurice Vile, Alan Gabbey, Hugh Pennington, Janet L. Nelson, Grant MacLean, Julian Rathbone

David Runciman on Blair’s conference speech

Mao meets Oakeshott

John Lanchester: Britain’s new class divide

Ian Sansom on Anthony Powell

Tony Harrison

Christopher Tayler on disappointing sequels

Colin Burrow on writing (and reading) charitably

Ian Hacking: Religion’s evolutionary origins

  • In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion by Scott Atran

Water’s water everywhere

Jerry Fodor on Kripke

  • Kripke: Names, Necessity and Identity by Christopher Hughes  Buy this book

I have washed my feet out of it

Hilary Mantel: Growing up in Ghana

  • Hustling Is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl by John Chernoff  Buy this book
  • Exchange Is Not Robbery: More Stories of an African Bar Girl by John Chernoff  Buy this book
  • Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  Buy this book

Short Cuts

Thomas Jones: Bob Dylan’s Tall Tales

Chalmers Johnson: ‘A classic study of blowback’

  • Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to 10 September 2001 by Steve Coll  Buy this book

A Security Guard: Close protection in Baghdad

Jonathan Steele on Chechnya

Robin Robertson

Terry Castle: The lesbian scarcity economy

At the Royal Scottish Academy

Nicholas Penny on The Age of Titian

Adam Phillips on Sándor Márai and the myth of redemptive love

  • Conversations in Bolzano by Sándor Márai, translated by George Szirtes

James Lasdun with the rent-collector

Contributors

LRB cover artwork: 25th Anniversary (Part 1)

Featured articles

Mao meets Oakeshott
John Lanchester: Britain’s new class divide

Water’s water everywhere
Jerry Fodor on Kripke

I have washed my feet out of it
Hilary Mantel: Growing up in Ghana

Short Cuts
Thomas Jones: Bob Dylan’s Tall Tales

At the Royal Scottish Academy
Nicholas Penny on The Age of Titian