Notebooks

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

Charles III, then Prince of Wales, visits the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 2001.

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The Gospel according to King Charles

How King Charles chose the ancient St Augustine Gospels for his Coronation.

Alastair Benn May 5, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin walks through the halls of the Kremlin on his way to be sworn in as the President of the Russian Federation on May 7, 2018 in Moscow.

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A Little History of Modern Russia

Western authors have contributed a vast range of insights into the state of contemporary Russia - here's a selection of the very best.

Andrew Monaghan May 2, 2023

The U.S. Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge leads a formation with ships from the Netherlands, Portugal and Norway during a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea.

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NATO’s Baltic Dilemma

The Baltic will be crucial in the event of conflict between NATO and Russia. It’s time NATO got its plans in order for the region.

Luke Coffey April 28, 2023

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The Vedic Canon

Canons usually ring-fence the cultural material that is ‘banked’ as precious by a given society. But the Vedic canon was fluid, organic, and open to ever-new possibilities.

Jessica Frazier April 26, 2023

Christine de Pizan presenting a book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria.

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Shakespeare’s Sisters: a women’s canon

The landscape of women’s literature is far older, more extensive and much richer than is often acknowledged.

Francesca Peacock April 24, 2023

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Spring’s Norman Roots

The Norman Conquest brought new kinds of poetry from France, with new stories, language, and themes - and one of those themes was spring.

Eleanor Parker April 24, 2023

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The Anonymous Canon

The first in a series devoted to 'the Canon' looks at the special works created by unknown – and, sometimes, unmasked – creators.

Anon. April 20, 2023

Sunny Day in Spring by Konstantin Yuon, 1910.

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William Gerhardie’s Russian Problem

The novelist William Gerhardie won early acclaim for his portraits of Russia and its people. But both the critics and his ever-diminishing public failed to appreciate his wider vis..

James Snell April 19, 2023

Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza sits in a cage in a courtroom prior to a court session in Moscow, Russia, 2023.

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The Return of Russia’s Soviet Past

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s trial is a chilling reminder of the trials of Soviet dissidents in the sixties, seventies and eighties.

Elisabeth Braw April 18, 2023