Lionel Shriver is a columnist at The Spectator and author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, among other books.
Readers of The Spectator who keep up with the latest literary hissy fits could have predicted (perhaps with a groan) exactly what Shriver will write about this week. Maybe it’s hard to pity Jeanine Cummins. Her third novel, American Dirt, secured a seven-figure advance, an Oprah Book Club pick and a huge publicity campaign (waste
Should Bernie Sanders become the Democratic presidential nominee, expect the media to overuse these sprightly English expressions: ‘between a rock and a hard place’, ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’, ‘on the horns of a dilemma’ and ‘Morton’s fork’. After all, you wouldn’t call a Trump vs Sanders race a ‘Hobson’s choice’, which
One of the more dispiriting experiences of the British supermarket is a visit to the fish counter. On a historically seagoing island, the selection is often abysmal, frequently imported, and always expensive: farmed Norwegian salmon, farmed Vietnamese basa (blech), cod gone a suspicious taupe and priced like its weight in saffron (83 per cent of
It seems seasonably suitable to celebrate good news. Unfortunately, as in most serviceable stories, for something good to happen, something bad had to happen first. Though we’ve only been in sporadic touch since, I met Kevin Myers three decades ago at a boozy lunch in Dublin. He was already a journalistic institution. By his own
The pressure group Women Against State Pension Inequality (Waspi) is oddly named. What their campaign opposes is pension equality. Now, technically these activists born in the 1950s do not object to equalising the pension ages of men and women, so long as said activists don’t personally have to sacrifice for gender justice. Supposedly, the problem
In 2019, Labour’s strategy is about delivering a fairer, more prosperous society, in adherence to our motto: for the zany, not the shrewd. Because Labour voters have short attention spans (and therefore do not remember how deeply we got the nation in debt the last time our party was in power), we would like to
Dear Nigel Believe it or not, I’ve been your defender. I’ve often told Americans, ‘Sure, he comes across as a fop. But listen to what he actually says. He’s smarter than you think.’ OK, you have an affect problem. I’ve seen through the clowning. I bet you’ve never been that camp off-camera, and lately you’ve
Dear Nigel Believe it or not, I’ve been your defender. I’ve often told Americans, ‘Sure, he comes across as a fop. But listen to what he actually says. He’s smarter than you think.’ OK, you have an affect problem. I’ve seen through the clowning. I bet you’ve never been that camp off-camera, and lately
At the New Yorker Festival party in mid-October, my astute colleague hardly needed the caution. But you know how at a discombobulating bash you seize gratefully on something to talk about. So as Matthew Goodwin and I rubbed elbows with the East Coast elite at the Old Town Bar in Manhattan (‘Look! It’s Ronan Farrow!’),
At the New Yorker Festival party in mid-October, my astute colleague hardly needed the caution. But you know how at a discombobulating bash you seize gratefully on something to talk about. So as Matthew Goodwin and I rubbed elbows with the East Coast elite at the Old Town Bar in Manhattan (‘Look! It’s Ronan Farrow!’),
Riddle: when is discrimination against a historically disadvantaged racial minority perfectly legal? Answer: when they do too well. The first ruling on the Students for Fair Admissions suit against Harvard University is in. A federal judge in Massachusetts concluded last week that for America’s be-all-and-end-all university to discriminate against Asian applicants in order to serve
Riddle: when is discrimination against a historically disadvantaged racial minority perfectly legal? Answer: when they do too well. The first ruling on the Students for Fair Admissions suit against Harvard University is in. A federal judge in Massachusetts concluded last week that for America’s be-all-and-end-all university to discriminate against Asian applicants in order to serve
I don’t usually get up early just for an appointment at a bank. Yet last Tuesday in New York, I lost sleep in order to slam a trove of savings into a certificate of deposit. Surely I could have delayed the quotidian chore for any old day. What was the hurry? I wanted to ensure
I don’t usually get up early just for an appointment at a bank. Yet last Tuesday in New York, I lost sleep in order to slam a trove of savings into a certificate of deposit. Surely I could have delayed the quotidian chore for any old day. What was the hurry? I wanted to ensure
American liberals perceive it as a jarring inconsistency: my opposition to Trump and support for Brexit. Especially outside the UK, these two phenomena are perceived as identical twin expressions of an alarming ‘populism’, whereby the animals take over the zoo. I’m one of the curiously few political voyeurs who think the American electorate’s preference for
American liberals perceive it as a jarring inconsistency: my opposition to Trump and support for Brexit. Especially outside the UK, these two phenomena are perceived as identical twin expressions of an alarming ‘populism’, whereby the animals take over the zoo. I’m one of the curiously few political voyeurs who think the American electorate’s preference for
San Francisco must be the virtue capital of the world. (The latest: just across the bay, Berkeley’s city council voted this summer that ‘manholes’ must hereon in be called ‘maintenance holes’.) But when the lofty run out of real enemies, they often turn on their own kind. Moreover, too much success in achieving a raft
When last week’s IPCC report warned that the human race may soon have trouble feeding itself, my reaction was: duh. Having pooh-poohed the 1960s ‘population bomb’ alarmism that would have us all balancing on our allotted five square inches of Earth by now, we’ve grown complacent about increasing our 7.7 billion world population by at
Whitney museum: no space for profiteers of state violence // dismantle patriarchy // warren kanders must go! // supreme injustice must end // we will not forget // choking freedom is a crime // enough // greed is deadly // humanity has no borders // we grieve the harm… If that array of posters paving
Whitney museum: no space for profiteers of state violence // dismantle patriarchy // warren kanders must go! // supreme injustice must end // we will not forget // choking freedom is a crime // enough // greed is deadly // humanity has no borders // we grieve the harm… If that array of posters paving
