STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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Best of 2020: Sci fi and horror fiction with Mat Coward
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
THE STRANGEST book I’ve read this year, and one of the most transfixing, is You Again by Debra Jo Immergut (Titan, £8.99).
It features in-house corporate illustrator Abby, who lives in New York with her husband and teenage sons. Middle-aged, a bit tired and a bit bored, she and her husband both started out as artists but life happened to them and now they have “proper” jobs.
It’s not a disagreeable existence at all but then Abby starts to see herself around town. It’s not someone reminiscent of her, it’s actually her, aged 22. Quite apart from the disturbing impossibility of the situation, there’s the dilemma: should she approach her old self? And if she does, what should she tell her?
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