4 d. ago Knife by Salman Rushdie audiobook review – 27 seconds that changed everything

The author recalls the attack that almost killed him in an honest, terrifying and life-affirming memoirOn 12 August 2022, Salman Rushdie was at a literary conference in Chautauqua, New York, about to deliver a lecture on keeping writers from harm, when a stranger rushed at him with a knife. Rushdie – who in 1989 had a fatwa issued against him by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his death, after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses – was stabbed in his neck, chest, hand and eye.Knife is Rushdie’s memoir of his “near-death” in which he recalls seeing his attacker and thinking to himself: “So it’s you. Here you are.” The attack lasted 27 seconds and, to this day, the author remains bewildered that he didn’t fight back. “Was I so feeble that I couldn’t make the slightest attempt to defend myself?” he asks. As baffling to him is that the man, a Lebanese-American whom he calls “The A” (short for “Assailant” or “Ass”), had never read The Satanic Verses. Instead, he had watc...

Events

8 d. ago What They Found review – Sam Mendes’s debut documentary has the power to change viewers for ever

This tale of two British army sergeants who filmed the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp uses their profoundly disturbing footage. It’s TV that could alter your whole world viewWhat They Found, the first documentary by the film and theatre director Sam Mendes, is a short, stark shock. The film straightforwardly combines two precious artefacts held at the Imperial War Museum in London: 35mm film, shot by Sgt Mike Lewis and Sgt Bill Lawrie of the British Army Film and Photographic Unit, before and during the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near the town of Celle in northern Germany in April 1945; and audio interviews given by the cameramen in the 1980s. Lewis and Lawrie did not record sound when they visited Belsen; the words they spoke years later are the only sounds we hear.Lewis and Lawrie do not arrive at Belsen until almost halfway through the film’s 36-minute running time. First, laid over generic archive footage, we hear how they came to be a...

Politics

9 d. ago New DWP planned changes to PIP and Universal Credit under review by Committee

The cross-party Work and Pensions Committee has launched a new inquiry into the proposed welfare reforms.

Politics

1 week ago Cyndi Lauper review – 80s pop eccentric hasn’t changed a bit

Rod Laver Arena, MelbourneHer farewell tour is a pockmarked history of her roots and wide-ranging influences, full of her trademark elan and vigourGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailFandom isn’t a good look on a critic; we’re supposed to be sober and impartial, analytical and measured. What to do, then, when called upon to review your favourite idol, the singer who first turned you on to the power of pop? Judicious rumination or tinny screams of delight? There’s room for both in this swan song from 80s pop eccentric Cyndi Lauper, as irrepressible here as when I saw her as a teenager, then touring her new album True Colours. She’s had an illustrious career, including a side gig composing musicals – Kinky Boots, and soon an adaptation of 80s workplace comedy Working Girl – but the bulk of her hits are drawn from her first two albums, including the astonishing debut She’s So Unusual. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – the song that gives this farewell tour its name – is also by far La...

Politics

2 w. ago Salman Rushdie to tackle mortality in first fiction book written since knife attack

Book will mark author’s first fiction work after being stabbed on stage in 2022 – and will ‘explore themes and places that have been much on my mind’

Events

3 w. ago Under threat from Trump, Columbia University agrees to policy changes

Columbia University agreed to implement a suite of policy changes, including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department

Events

3 w. ago Changing My Mind by Julian Barnes review – a manifesto for open

The author’s suite of essays, originally conceived for broadcast, don’t always translate well for the pageJulian Barnes’s latest book comprises five micro-essays, originally commissioned for a radio series a decade ago and repackaged here. The publisher spies an opportunity, perhaps, for something like a manifesto on open-mindedness, with Barnes’s musings the vehicle. Not unreasonable: as the author of 14 novels, winner of the Booker, he knows a thing or two about the power of language: “I believe deeply in words, in their ability to represent thought, define truth, and create beauty. I’m equally aware that words are constantly used for the opposite purposes: to obfuscate truth, misrepresent thought, lie, slander, and provoke hatred.”It follows from this recognition that a clever person ought to be able to rethink old convictions in light of new evidence and life experience – to see one’s misperceptions for what they are and change one’s mind. Call it the virtue ...

Politics

4 w. ago Grand Palladium Kantenah review: 'Why a trip to Mexico changed my mind on booking a family resort holiday'

Our reviewer took a trip to the Grand Palladium Kantenah Resort and Spa, in the Riveria Maya, Mexico - and discovered a new love of a family resort.

Politics