PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
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2020: Books of the Year with Fiona O’Connor
INSPIRED OBSERVATION: Fintan O'Toole
[RCW Literary Agency]
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Full of mysterious religious references and radical sound design, the Scottish duo’s new offering is candidate for album of the year, suggests SIMON DUFF
MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
IN THEORY, 2020’s lockdown should have provided the perfect conditions for major outbreaks of bibliophilia.
But, following an intense publishing year in 2019, when The Washington Post book section declared that “fascism is back in fashion” and classics like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America and Sinclair Lewis’s It Could Happen Here shot up bestseller lists, 2020 ironically seemed less fevered — the rise of Covid-19 and the US presidential election shifted the ground beneath publishing’s feet somewhat.
Faced with a worldwide assault on democracy, with authoritarian populism gaining traction in countries including Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the Philippines, Brazil and, of course, the US and Britain, many writers seemed to have entered the depressive stage of the grief cycle.
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