ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
Latest editorial
Gold lost in the gravel
State of Paranoia fails to penetrate the detritus of propaganda and disinformation surrounding North Korea and see the wider picture, says KENNY COYLE
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
North Korea:
State of Paranoia
by Paul French
(Zed Books, £9.99)
HAVING read Paul French’s North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula, published a decade ago, I was looking forward to a greatly updated version and even an answer as to why there had been a change in title.
Unfortunately, this version is approximately 90 per cent the same as its predecessor, with entire chapters repeated virtually verbatim. Only a foreword and concluding chapter constitute any genuinely new material.
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