Mikhail Fridman is one of the wealthiest men in Russia and a close associate of Vladimir Putin. He was included in the earliest lists of individuals sanctioned by the West for his complicity in the…
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Dato Turashvili is one of Georgia’s best known writers, but unfortunately only a couple of his books are available in English translation. This new book is in both Georgian and English and is a lavishly…
This is the third novel by Emily St. John Mandel that I’ve read this month. I’m binge-reading her books in no particular order, starting with the most recent, but that’s also pretty much her style….
Having read (and loved) Sea of Tranquility I was surprised to discover the same characters in this earlier book by Emily St. John Mandel. I may be reading the books in the wrong order, but…
I love a good time travel story – and I loved this one so much that I finished it in two days. (To be fair, it’s a short book.). The author works with two well-worn…
A few weeks ago Russia indicated that it might designate Facebook as an extremist organisation. To block such a thing occurring, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, clarified its position. It had recently changed its rules to…
If only! Productivity expert Cal Newport makes a compelling argument against the way we use email now, and anyone who struggles with overflowing inboxes will learn from what he writes. But he doesn’t have much…
Seventy years ago at the height of the Cold War a book was published in the US entitled The Russian Menace to Europe. It made the case that “the major objective of Russian foreign policy…
Last week, the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization (ILO), passed a resolution strongly condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine. The resolution was not passed unanimously. The vote reflected divisions not only between countries but…
A few years ago, when I was working on the Bernie Sanders campaign, one of our volunteers came to me with an interesting proposal. It turned out that he worked in London for Russia Today…