His aunt’s son, Cody Peterson, posted on Facebook that he was ragged and had been trying to save his family’s home for days with few reinforcements and no end in sight. “I’m too tired to keep going,” he wrote. “I haven’t eaten one meal in 60 hours.” Firefighters, some with …...Read More
States Are in Desperate Search for Help Battling Record Wildfires
A Climate Reckoning in Fire-Stricken California
Climate scientists say the mechanism driving the wildfire crisis is straightforward: Human behavior, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, has released greenhouse gases that increase temperatures, desiccating forests and priming them to burn. Mark Harvey, who was senior director for resilience at the National Security Council …...Read More
MUST READS: Home Work by Julie Andrews book review
HOME WORK by Julie Andrews (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £9.99, 352 pp) HOME WORK by Julie Andrews (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £9.99, 352 pp) The first volume of Julie Andrews’s memoir, Home, told the story of her early life as a child performer. Its follow-up, Home Work, covers her Hollywood years, starting …...Read More
PICTURE THIS: Oxford The Last Hurrah by Dafydd Jones book review
OXFORD: THE LAST HURRAH by Dafydd Jones (ACC Art Books £20) OXFORD: THE LAST HURRAH by Dafydd Jones (ACC Art Books £20) RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next CRIME PICTURE THIS Share this article Share Students drinking and behaving badly is not exactly breaking news — but this is Oxford University …...Read More
Author reveals the challenges faced by the owners of Britain's grand country houses
SOCIETY OLD HOMES, NEW LIFE by Clive Aslet (Triglyph £50, 304 pp) What made audiences all over the world fall in love with Downton Abbey? Perhaps it was Lady Mary’s exquisite frocks, the Dowager Countess’s waspish put-downs, or the slow-burn romance between Carson and Mrs Hughes. But for many of …...Read More
WHAT BOOK would thriller writer John Connolly take to a desert island?
. . . are you reading now? I have a couple of books on the go at the moment. I’m reading Bloody Sam, a biography of director Sam Peckinpah, but I keep having to pause to go back and re-watch some of his films. I’ve reached the section dealing with …...Read More
The Allies' capture of Sicily in 38 days was the beginning of the end for Third Reich
HISTORY SICILY '43 by James Holland (Bantam £25, 640 pp) Sicily was a tough nut to crack for the Allied forces from Britain, Canada and the U.S., who landed on the enemy-occupied Mediterranean island in the blistering summer of 1943. They came from fighting Rommel's tanks on the wide open …...Read More
Tales of gloriously eccentric British pensioners
BOOK OF THE WEEK THE GRAN TOUR by Ben Aitken (Icon £14.99, 306 pp) When Ben Aitken discovers that for £109 he can get a four-night coach trip to Scarborough, with a cooked breakfast every morning, three-course dinner every night and excursions to York and Whitby, his first thought is: …...Read More
New books sheds light on fungi, which are the largest and oldest living things on earth
NATURE Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake (Bodley Head £20, 368 pp) The splendidly named Merlin Sheldrake is the son of the maverick biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who famously came up with the idea of 'morphic resonance'. This suggests that all living things somehow connect, have 'memories', and communicate with each other …...Read More
Des Moines Schools Defy Governor's Reopening Order Amid Coronavirus
No matter how much tension has surrounded the reopening of schools during the coronavirus pandemic, most state and local officials have found a way to arrive at some sort of plan by the first day of classes. But not in Des Moines, where school began this week with local officials …...Read More
