Notebooks

Notebooks are snapshots from our writers, reflecting on current affairs and underappreciated aspects of culture and history.

Address by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin in response to a coup attempt.

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Prigozhin’s coup: the beginning of the end for Putin

Putin has only himself to blame for the mess he has got himself into.

Rodric Braithwaite June 25, 2023

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The fight for the heart of Istanbul

Now under President Erdogan’s control, the symbolic weight of the city’s central square has never been more obvious. What was once a gathering place for dissenters and a cosmopolit..

Hannah Lucinda Smith June 20, 2023

Thousands of mourners packed the area around the Duomo di Milano in Milan to bid farewell to Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media mogul and former prime minister who died at the age of 86.

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The Vault of Heaven: Silvio Berlusconi’s final resting place

His personal life may have been splashed across newspaper front pages for all to see, but mystery surrounds the ‘tomb of a pharaoh’ the controversial ex-prime minister has been int..

Guido G. Beduschi June 19, 2023

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When JS Bach came to Leipzig

His superiors may have worried about his ‘weird tone’, but three centuries after the composer’s most astonishingly productive period, his contribution to music remains immense, wit..

Elisabeth Braw June 16, 2023

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The weirdness of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian is McCarthy’s masterpiece and one of the most compellingly disturbing novels ever written.

Alexander Larman June 16, 2023

Vintage Travel poster - British Airways.

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Airports have changed – for the worse

Flying has become such an unpleasant experience that it is hard to believe airports were once tourist attractions.

Bryan Appleyard June 15, 2023

Frederick the Great playing the flute as C.P.E. Bach accompanies on the keyboard.

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The Berlin Bach

Arguably more famous than his acclaimed father during their lifetimes, the inventive and unorthodox Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach was instrumental in shifting music towards a modern, s..

Andrea Valentino June 13, 2023

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The mighty Dnieper’s war stories

The devastation of Ukraine's Nova Kakhovka dam is reminiscent of an incident that occurred during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. This river has been a major playe..

Sergey Radchenko June 8, 2023

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Noel Coward’s too brief encounter with the silver screen

How did ‘the Master’ manage, at times, to work so brilliantly within the recorded image during his own lifetime, and why has it all gone so badly wrong ever since?

Alexander Larman June 5, 2023