Best Albums of 2020 – longlist
Who’ll make the final cut? My best albums of 2020 list is growing. Beats, jazz, indie, rap, afrobeat, drone…
The Art Of Loving
Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one "falls into" if one is lucky? This little book is based on the former premise, while undoubtedly the majority of people...
Congo Journey
Just after four in the morning, Nze stuck his head through the tent-flap. 'Psst!' he said. 'Dr Lary! Let me in!' Lary, coughing his odd, dry, rapid little cough, switched on his torch and undid the ties. 'I'm dying!' said Nze, on all-fours, fixing Lary with his right...
By Night In Chile
Every now and then, Farewell burst into excessively sonorous laughter. At each of these guffaws, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He looked like the god Pan, or Bacchus in his den, or some demented Spanish conquistador ensconced in a southern fort. The...
Congo Journey
In her hut in Poto-Poto, the poor quarter of Brazzaville, the feticheuse, smiling at us, knelt on the floor, drew out a handful of cowrie shells from the cloth bag at her waist, and cast them across the raffia mat. Lary Shaffer and I, despite ourselves, leaned forward...