Robbie Millen

Who is Laszlo Krasznahorkai, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature? Everything you need to know about this year’s winner and his apocalyptically gloomy novels

"The best way to read him would be with all your devices on the other side of a locked door."

Me on Nobel literature laureate László Krasznahorkai, a writer who "fits into the Nobel mould so fully that if he didn’t exist, the committee would have had to make him up."

This made me laugh more than it probably should 😂
#funny

v pleased by v kind review of The Revolutionists (published on Friday) in the Times. esp as by legendary Simon Sebag Montefiore. www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

The Prize announces 2025 shortlist The Baillie Gifford Prize rewards excellence in non-fiction writing, bringing the best in intelligent reflection on the world to new readers.

“Formidable female novelists, ghastly literary men, a faith-shaken poet, eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, international terrorists…" It's been great fun to judge this prize ... and here are the six finalists ... www.thebailliegiffordprize.co.uk/inside-the-c...

'Eunuchs, pirates, horny wolves, terrorists': Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2025 shortlist revealed

ICYMI: Jason Burke, Helen Garner, Richard Holmes, Justin Marozzi, Adam Weymouth and Frances Wilson have been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2025 👇 #BookSky

Me on Gore Vidal's centenary👇

A YouTube Education In art, science, philosophy, music and more

I often write disparagingly about the internet’s slide towards video but YouTube has also educated me in poetry, philosophy music and art

Here is a YouTube education - a list of videos which form a kind of curriculum in the humanities and the sciences

jmarriott.substack.com/p/a-youtube-...

Viral madness and jazz riffs: a chaotic comedy for our times Weird vibes, eccentric characters, odd punctuation — it’s all here in Nicola Barker’s energising and exasperating novel, TonyInterruptor

"Barker can turn on a traditional novelist’s skills. But mostly she chooses not to follow the trad path. She would rather be the Picasso of fiction, breaking the rules to see what comes out."

Me on Nicola Barker's energising and exasperating new novel, TonyInterruptor:

William F Buckley, gentleman revolutionary and word-drunk dandy Sam Tanenhaus in his biography, Buckley, chronicles the life of the combative conservative intellectual

"He was a logophile, and loved obscure and little-used words, such as logophile."

John Banville on the new biography of William F Buckley, one of the old arch-conservatives who "would have deplored Donald Trump as a vulgar arriviste, but by jingo they would have voted for him."

Idi Amin — why ‘Big Daddy’ is popular in modern Uganda Derek R Peterson in his revisionist history argues that the brutal dictator’s regime was built on genuine popular appeal

My review of Derek Peterson's quirky and intriguing book on Idi Amin's Uganda: www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

The 25 best novels of the 21st century — from Kazuo Ishiguro to Hilary Mantel Our literary team pick the top British and Irish fiction of the past 25 years, from Sally Rooney and William Boyd to Zadie Smith and Douglas Stuart

This was fun to do ... the best 25 British/Irish novels of the past 25 years www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

‘I was born for more than mere sanity’: life in a 1950s institution Jennifer Dawson’s reissued 1961 novel, The Ha-Ha, draws on her own experience — she had a breakdown in her final year at Oxford and spent six months on a psychiatric ward

“I was born for something more than mere sanity. I was born for so much joy.”

My review of Jennifer Dawson's 1961 novel The Ha-Ha, reissued by Faber Editions, a story of a woman in and out of a mental institution, whose "emotions surge and plunge, and she’s left hanging on like a sailor in a gale."

Why can't anyone stop the fundraisers outside London stations? Inside Success and WeRBlighty have broken the law with their fundraising activities. So why are they are allowed to continue operating outside the capital's busiest railway stations?

Ever wondered what the deal is with the InsideSuccess kids outside London stations who tell you they are raising money to stop knife crime? I have. Well @jim.londoncentric.media of London Centric has done the leg work, as ever.
substack.com/inbox/post/1...

It’s a gangster’s paradise — how crime organises our world Mark Galeotti in his excitable history, Homo Criminalis, shows the ways that the underworld shapes society, from Aztec cocoa bean counterfeiting to nefarious dealings on the dark web

I reviewed this history of organised crime. Full of fascinating stuff ... and I loved the story about the owner of Porky's, a Miami topless bar, who tried to buy a Russian submarine www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

The image is a piece of fan art titled "Klimt Eastwood," created by Carl Tétreault in 2016. It depicts actor and director Clint Eastwood in a style inspired by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, specifically referencing Klimt's "The Kiss".

Please enjoy this Klimt Eastwood

We’re living in the age of BS … and it’s only going to get worse Twenty years ago, the philosopher Harry G Frankfurt’s witty and influential essay, On Bullshit, was first published. Now reissued, it’s timelier than ever

On Bullshit came out 20 years ago. Harry Frankfurt was prescient about the post-truth social menace. Our age is so much bullshittier ... www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Don’t believe Roman lies — Carthage was civilised In Roman propaganda it was a place of debauchery and child sacrifice, but in her new history Eve MacDonald shows that life in the ancient empire was surprisingly sophisticated

I read a superb new history of Carthage by Eve MacDonald - a finer cicerone than Flaubert - for @thetimes.com. My lead review today:

www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

How to deal with a midlife crisis — get in a car and keep driving The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits is the story of a man who escapes his ‘C-minus marriage’ by taking an impromptu road trip across America

Great to see Ben Markovits longlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel The Rest of Our Lives - a slim study of middle-aged ennui set on the US highway.

Here's my review for @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Booker prize longlist 2025: our critic’s verdict A quietly strong list includes novels by Claire Adam, Kiran Desai, Ben Markovits, Andrew Miller and David Szalay

Thirteen novels, eleven publishers, nine nationalities, seven women, six men, five Brits, four books under 200 pages, three Fabers, two debutants ... and one dud.

My rundown of a quietly solid Booker Prize 2025 longlist:

Private Eye hits the nail on the head

Salt Path scandal: the juiciest literary scams, from James Frey to JT LeRoy As accusations around Raynor Winn’s bestseller come to light, our critic rounds up the greatest scams, hoaxes and frauds in publishing history

In the wake of Salt-Path-gate, I wrote about some of the juiciest literary frauds, including JT Leroy (whose fright wig made Warhol’s look understated), Eugenio Montale (did Clive James ever recover?), William Boyd, and of course the guv’nor, the constitutionally shameless James Frey:

Beer, whisky, mescal — this is the great novel of alcoholic self-destruction It took ten despairing years for Malcolm Lowry to get Under the Volcano published. But this tale of a British diplomat’s drunken progress in Mexico is heroic, fervid and funny

An honour for me to write about the wonderful novel, Under The Volcano: www.thetimes.com/culture/book... (Kudos to the subs too - "heroic, fervid and funny" is a fine summary.)

This punchy satire is Dickens meets The Big Short Drayton and Mackenzie, Alexander Starritt’s new novel, takes on the world of Oxbridge, McKinsey and tech bros with brio

A big, bustling novel about love, friendship, money, ambition and the 21st century, packed with humour and intelligent observations … I finished it tear-stained' @thetimes.com

Read the full review of #DraytonandMackenzie by Alexander Starritt 🌊 shorturl.at/KAmZT

Yup, you're now an expert --- and to blame for everything!

Even if you're wheezy you can chuck chairs around ...

Around the world in 12 novels — an expert’s guide You’ve booked your holiday destination — now pack a book to match. John Self picks a dozen titles with a vivid sense of place

The washed-up actress amid Rome's ruins; the smugglers and gossip-mongers of Morocco; the Sicilian heart-throb who couldn't get it up; and Maigret on holiday ("It was a crime of passion." "Don't be ridiculous! She was nearly fifty").

I wrote about great novels set in favourite holiday destinations:

I just bought a packet of cigarettes for the first time since 2016. Bloody hell, £18! Why are there no riots on the streets!

How the IRA stole £26.5 million in a single night — and got away with it In The Northern Bank Job, Glenn Patterson masterfully narrates the details of the infamous Belfast heist. But the bigger question, he argues, is why the thieves did it

"It wasn't just a monetary robbery, but a symbolic one. The Northern Bank building is a great 1970s edifice in concrete: a building you can imagine Bill Bixby walking out of, coat over shoulder, in the credits for The Incredible Hulk."

Me on Glenn Patterson's book about the IRA's £26.5m bank job:

Blackmail! The Typing Ghost! Diabolism! Sudden death! Every time I read a Muriel Spark novel I'm reminded just how original, weird, dark and funny her imagination was