May 30, 2021 Share
“COMPUTERS ARE USELESS. They can only give you answers,” said Picasso in 1968, the year in which Intel was founded and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was released. Picasso didn’t change his mind. Over the last half century computers have become immensely better at providing answers, but not so good at asking questions. A good book asks questions. A better one raises questions you never knew existed. The key to a lockdown can lie in a book.
Who knew that Stalin was a fan of Tarzan and cowboy films? Or that Stalin and Roosevelt smoked the same cigarette brands: Camels, Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes? Thank you, Diana Preston, for Eight Days at Yalta: How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin Shaped the Post-War World.
Anything Good: 13 Books We Think You Should Read This Month
vanityfair.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from vanityfair.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
What to read in April: A critic s pick of books that aren t on the bestseller list
washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Top authors, officials and creative talent to lead onsite, virtual sessions Acclaimed author Elif Shafak is among the big names at this year s Emirates Festival of Literature Image Credit: Supplied
Dubai: The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai is set for its big weekend (Thursday to Saturday) with a line-up that includes Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, acclaimed authors Elif Shafak and Amin Maalouf, and a day dedicated to Emirati talent (on Thursday), sponsored by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.
The events at the annual festival at InterContinental Hotel Dubai Festival City will see live sessions featuring home-grown writers, poets and experts combined with virtual appearances from international authors. Tickets for some events are already sold out, but the festival’s Dh100 digital ticket, giving access to at least 10 live streamed sessions, including Malala and Elif Shafak, means that fans can still catch the action virtuall
Edward Brooke-Hitching in conversation with John Lloyd
This is an online event. Bookers will be sent a link in advance giving access and will be able to watch at any time for 48 hours after the start time
Edward Brooke-Hitching talks to TV producer and writer John Lloyd (
Blackadder, QI and much more) about his new book
The Madman’s Library, a journey that takes us into the darkest territories of literature, to hunt down the very strangest books ever written and uncover the fascinating stories behind their creation.
From a gorgeously decorated 15th-century lawsuit filed by the Devil against Jesus to a 605-page Qur an written in the blood of Saddam Hussein, to the lost art of binding books with human skin, every strand of strangeness imaginable (and many inconceivable) has been unearthed. Books that hoaxed the globe and books invisible to the naked eye, books of code and cypher whose secrets remain undiscovered… and others that are just plain weird. Several have been uncover