Culture

Review of Almost Life by Kieran Millwood Hargrave – A Strange Love Story | imaginary

Review of Almost Life by Kieran Millwood Hargrave – A Strange Love Story | imaginary

🔥 Explore this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Fiction,Books,Culture 💡 **What You’ll Learn**: gAlthough the novels are routinely promoted as the remake of some previous novel, Almost Life will undoubtedly be heralded as One Day Meets Ordinary People for a Sexually Fluid Generation. Featuring romantic resonances that span many years and an unironic look at the youthful psyche, it is indeed relatable.The novel begins in 1978 Paris with a moment of rapprochement on the steps of the Sacred Heart when students Laure Boutin and Erika Parker first glimpse each other, then tease the reader with…
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When the Forest Breathes Review by Susan Simard – Indiana Jones’ Trees Return | Science and nature books

When the Forest Breathes Review by Susan Simard – Indiana Jones’ Trees Return | Science and nature books

🚀 Check out this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Science and nature books,Environment,Trees and forests,Books,Culture,Climate crisis 💡 **What You’ll Learn**: IIt's 2021, and Suzanne Simard is in a police car, being escorted out of a protest site at Ferry Creek on Vancouver Island, where activists are locked in a standoff with Teal Jones Group, an industrial logging company. She decided to give the arresting officer a piece of her mind — the way only a serious Canadian forest ecologist can. “It takes decades for clear-cut forests to stop emitting more carbon than they sequester, and…
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Climate Imagination Prize announces finalists including Madeleine Thein and Robbie Arnott | books

Climate Imagination Prize announces finalists including Madeleine Thein and Robbie Arnott | books

💥 Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Books,Climate fiction prize,Awards and prizes,Culture 💡 **What You’ll Learn**: Madeleine Thein and Robbie Arnott are among the writers shortlisted for this year's £10,000 Climate Fiction Prize.Now, in its second year, the award celebrates novels that engage with the climate crisis through imaginative storytelling. This year's shortlist spans a wide range of styles, from speculative fiction to reimagined mythology.Thien's The Book of Records follows a girl who escapes floods in near-future China with her father, arriving at a large migrant complex called the Sea. The book traces the…
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Review of Illusions by Jenny Fagan – Life After Queues and Bureaucracy | books

Review of Illusions by Jenny Fagan – Life After Queues and Bureaucracy | books

🚀 Discover this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Books,Fiction,Culture ✅ **What You’ll Learn**: CEnnie Fagan's fifth satirical novel, Illusions, begins with an epigraph from the Kurt Vonnegut-inspired science fiction novel Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer. “The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.” The afterthought seeps into the original statement, supporting and undermining the whole thing.Infinity and immortality are inescapably present in Illusions, which takes place in a vast antechamber of the afterlife, “the greatest station for the soul in existence.” It's the metaphysical equivalent of a department store, helping you…
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Tonight TV: Illicit relationships and revenge in a wonderful period drama | television

Tonight TV: Illicit relationships and revenge in a wonderful period drama | television

🚀 Read this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Television,Television & radio,Culture 📌 **What You’ll Learn**: A woman of substance9pm on Channel 4The rags-to-riches drama continues with young Emma Hart (Jessica Reynolds) choosing a secret relationship with her employer's son, Edwin Fairley (Ewan Horrocks), rather than taking the opportunity to move to Leeds. However, it can't end well, as present-day Emma (Brenda Blethyn) still holds a grudge against the Fairley family. And it continues on Thursday as Lenny Rush gives a heartbreaking performance as Emma's brother. Holly RichardsonMarlowe Murder Club8 p.m., U & DramaWhen Marlowe's beloved…
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“Fear is Good”: My terrifying journey into Underland, the film of Robert MacFarlane’s dazzling book | film

“Fear is Good”: My terrifying journey into Underland, the film of Robert MacFarlane’s dazzling book | film

🔥 Check out this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Film,Culture,Environment,Documentary films 💡 **What You’ll Learn**: CUst off the B3134 in Somerset is a gateway to the underworld. The smaller of the two openings leading into Goatchurch Cavern is called the Merchant's Entrance - and I squeeze through. After tripping on my butt over a soft, wet rock, tearing my wetsuit in the process, I venture down and down, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing upright, trying to find my footing in the dark.I'm here with filmmaker Robert Beatty, so he can show me something of what he's…
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Solidarity Review by Rowan Williams – What does it really mean to stand by someone? | Philosophical books

Solidarity Review by Rowan Williams – What does it really mean to stand by someone? | Philosophical books

🔥 Read this must-read post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Philosophy books,Religion,Rowan Williams,Books,Culture 📌 **What You’ll Learn**: YYou don't need to scroll down social media pages to find someone expressing "solidarity" with victims of cruelty or injustice. Showing solidarity seems more emphatic than expressing support or sympathy. As Rowan Williams says, it can act as a “moral capacitor,” placing us squarely on the side of the victim. It can also be a declaration of innocence, a way to distance ourselves once and for all from the perpetrators and their condemnation.Williams wants to move us beyond the idea…
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The secret lives of six body doubles: ‘They wanted Julia Roberts to have curvier legs’ | Film

The secret lives of six body doubles: ‘They wanted Julia Roberts to have curvier legs’ | Film

🔥 Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Film,Culture,Sinners,Michael B Jordan,Emma Watson,Julia Roberts,Pretty Woman,Michael Douglas,Rachel Weisz,Andie MacDowell ✅ **What You’ll Learn**: Most of us are familiar with the idea of stunt doubles in film and television. But there are plenty of other doubles working in the industry, too – for when an actor doesn’t want to do an intimate scene, for example, or doesn’t have the skills required to show their character playing an instrument or driving a car. Here, six body doubles talk about their secret lives on screen.Michael B Jordan’s twinLookalikes … left,…
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The Kingdom: Oxford Bach Choir, BSO/Nicholas Review – Elgar’s unpopular oratorio sounds expansive and convincing | classical music

The Kingdom: Oxford Bach Choir, BSO/Nicholas Review – Elgar’s unpopular oratorio sounds expansive and convincing | classical music

🚀 Explore this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Classical music,Music,Culture,Choral music ✅ **What You’ll Learn**: IIt was intended to be a great choral triptych: the founding of the Christian church in three musical epics, beginning with the "Apostles" of 1903 and ending with the final epic "The Last Judgment" that was never written. But Elgar's inspiration and Catholic faith left the composer before the sequence was completed, leaving the story up in the air with the central panel of The Kingdom (1906).Perhaps this is why the oratorio has always been treated as rubbish – less…
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Wild Swimmers Review – Low-budget ragtag horror movie finds something to worry about in the water | film

Wild Swimmers Review – Low-budget ragtag horror movie finds something to worry about in the water | film

🚀 Read this awesome post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 **Category**: Film,Horror films,Culture 💡 **What You’ll Learn**: WA cap under the surface can be dangerous, as any land swimmer will tell you. There really is something to worry about in the water. But “Wild Swimmers” is not a documentary advocating for clean water; The danger here is not E. coli, but a vampire that has been living in the river for centuries. It's written and directed by music journalist-turned-filmmaker Rick Rollins, and like his 2023 debut Rewilding, it's another outsider horror film set in the West Country, played…
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