The New Review

The big picture

Nearly half a century has passed, and at least one of its subjects is dead, but this photograph by Nan Goldin feels as vital as the night it was taken – at a purple-hued bar in Boston, in 1978. Goldin later displayed it in New York clubs and galleries...

The big picture

The human cost of apartheid is clear to see in Jo Ractliffe’s portrait of a South African woman exiled for 21 years It’s the look of indifference that draws Jo Ractliffe back to this portrait, which she took in South Africa’s Northern Cape in 2013....

Laura Cumming: feathered treasures from Hawaii

THOSE WE LOVED AND LOST 2025

Roberta Flack BY DIONNE WARWICK Diogo Jota BY JÜRGEN KLOPP Marianne Faithfull BY WARREN ELLIS Tony Harrison BY SIMON ARMITAGE Giorgio Armani BY STELLA JEAN Dame Patricia Routledge BY GYLES BRANDRETH Denis Law BY SIR ALEX FERGUSON Prunella...

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

Ali Smith: a new seasonal story Lee Friedlander: fairytales from New York Róisín Lanigan: the lost art of partying Sarah Crompton: my Nutcracker marathon David Barnett: literary ghost hunters Holiday TV and puzzles

The big picture

Several months before this photograph was taken in February 2024, the family it pictures were living lives of relative comfort in Pakistan. They had a house, the girls were in school, there was a future ahead. Then Pakistan’s government ordered the...

The big picture

It seems a relatively simple image. A boy perched high in an olive tree reaches down to pluck fruit from a lower branch. Below, in the hazy distance, buildings, roads and walls can be made out before the landscape dissolves into the lateafternoon...

The big picture

The girl in the picture, resplendent in her ruffled pink dress, with a pink convertible to match, is celebrating her quinceañera, a Latin American tradition marking the passage from girlhood to womanhood upon turning 15. In Cuba, many families save up...

The big picture

It’s a tender, intimate moment that belies the chaotic era in which it was captured. The two women on the beach in Nantucket, Massachusetts, are photographer Nan Goldin (on right) and her partner at the time, the British-born artist Siobhan Liddell....

Lynn Barber on Anthony Hopkins

Lynn Barber on Anthony Hopkins & Helen Garner on learning to tango

AUTUMN BOOKS

Erica Wagner on Margaret Atwood Megan Nolan on Zadie Smith Rowan Williams on Philip Pullman & Andrew O’Hagan on old pals

The big picture

In 2020, as the world reeled from the spread of a zoonotic virus, and the reputation of cave-dwelling winged mammals sank to an alltime low, Sitaram Raul decided it was an excellent time to go out and start snapping bats. A keen nature photographer...

Vermeer uncovered

Vanessa Thorpe on the detective trail in Delft

May contain nuts

Olivia Ovenden on Peckham’s conker wars

The big picture

When we in Britain and Ireland remember the spate of kidnappings that occurred during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), we usually think of men such as Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan – hostages whose disappearances were covered...

The big picture

Stephen Shore’s new book Early Work, from which this photograph is taken, is a record of a world that has vanished in more ways than one. It gathers black-and-white images captured in New York City and upstate between 1960, when Shore was just turning...

The big picture

In the opening lines of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man, the unnamed narrator declares his invisibility but makes it clear that he’s not a ghost. “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids,” he asserts, adding that he’s...

The big picture

At first glance, I thought this was a two-headed dog, a reallife Cerberus guarding a medical facility of some sort in Louisiana. My confusion soon cleared up but the reality behind this 2014 photograph by Thomas Prior has a freakiness of its own. Ken...

Plus

Megan Nolan on feckless fathers William Boyd: imagining Albania Róisín Lanigan on flag-shaggers And: Wendy Ide watches cinema’s most toxic marriage

HOW HOLLYWOOD LOST THE PLOT

Also starring Eva Victor Making Sorry, Baby Fiona Maddocks A prom for Ukraine Mark Kermode My history in soundtracks Luke Turner Real-life ghostbusters Keith Blackmore Born to Run at 50

The big picture

“My work is about evoking empathy and making nature personal,” says Tim Flach, who photographs horses, dogs and other animals in studio settings. In this image of a distinctive American songbird, he has made its personality as big and as in-your-face...

Contributors

▶ Megan Nolan (p8) is a novelist whose books include Ordinary Human Failings, which was shortlisted for the Orwell prize. ▶ Erica Wagner (p18) is a consultant editor on The Observer’s comment desk. She is the author of Mary and Mr Eliot: A Sort of...

Contributors

▸ Anthony Cummins (p8, p37) is a regular critic and interviewer for The Observer’s books pages. He lives in London. ▸ Misan Harriman (p16) is chair of the Southbank Centre. In 2020 he became the first black photographer to shoot a British Vogue...

Contributors

• Robin McKie (p8) was science editor of The Observer for more than 30 years. His books include the genetic history Face of Britain. • Kadish Morris (p22) is a regular writer and critic for The Observer. She was awarded the Eric Gregory prize for...

Contributors

• Sarah Hall (p8), the only two-time winner of the BBC’s short story prize, lives in Cumbria. Her seventh novel, Helm, is out next month. • Jonathan Coe’s (p14) novels include What a Carve Up!, The Rotters’ Club and most recently The Proof of My...

The big picture

Sometimes the best photos happen with the least preparation, or even none at all. In December 2023, Veronique de Viguerie was in Afghanistan documenting women’s stories under Taliban rule since their return to power two years earlier – a potentially...

Contributors

• Jon Savage (p35) is a music journalist and author. His most recent book is The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture. • Sophie McBain (p8) is an awardwinning writer based in Boston, who has also reported from north Africa and...

Contributors

• Tom Baldwin (p8) was director of communications for the Labour party under Ed Miliband. He is the author of Keir Starmer: the Biography. • Erica Wagner’s (p38) books include Ariel’s Gift (about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes) and Mary and Mr Eliot....

Contributors

▸ Sarah Crompton (p30) is the Observer’s dance critic. Her books include a history of Sadler’s Wells and a biography of dancer Edward Watson. ▸ Stephanie Merritt (p42), a former editor at the Observer, is the author of the bestselling Giordano Bruno...

Adam Curtis’s cultural highlights Philip Collins on Jeremy Hunt Jehnny Beth’s rules for living And: from the archive, Sean O’Hagan meets Brian Wilson

Contributors

► Deborah Levy (p10) is a novelist, playwright and poet. Her books Swimming Home and Hot Milk were both shortlisted for the Booker prize. ► John Bew (p40) is professor of history and foreign policy at King’s College London and a former foreign...

David Mitchell: never trust Farage

David Mitchell: never trust Farage

Contributors

► Sophie Green’s (p19) photographs have been shown at the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A. Her book, Tangerine Dreams, is published this month. ► William Dalrymple (p14) spends a large part of the year on his farm outside Delhi. His books...

Susannah Clapp on Sondheim’s farewell

The big picture

The cherry-topped cupcake is barely out of its plastic wrapper. We might assume the boy is preparing to wolf down the treat he’s just purchased from the shop behind him, but Jamie Hawkesworth, who took the photo more than a decade ago, believes...

Contributors

• Gaby Wood (p17) first wrote for the Observer 30 years ago. She is chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation. • Robert Chalmers (p8) is the author of the novels Who’s Who in Hell and East of Nowhere and an award-winning feature writer. •...

Contributors

▸ Róisín Lanigan The Observer called Lanigan’s debut novel, I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There, “a wry gothic novel for generation rent” ▸ Mark Honigsbaum A regular contributor to the Observer, he has also published four books on contagious...

The big picture

"Who has known the ocean?" asked the pioneering American marine biologist, conservationist and writer Rachel Carson in her groundbreaking essay Undersea, published in the Atlantic in 1937. With our “earthbound senses”, neither you nor I can grasp how...

Feedback

Last week, John Naughton considered the implications of genealogy company 23andMe going bankrupt and the nefarious potential market for genetic information. Here’s how readers responded online: Probably all of us are traceable by malign forces through...

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Last week, Guy Lodge recommended 25 films to help understand the US today. Here’s how readers responded online: An excellent list of movies and documentaries. One important film that’s missing is Nomadland by Chloé Zhao. Life is too hard in the US for...

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Last week music writer Kate Mossman wrote about her youthful obsession with Queen and what happened when she interviewed the band’s drummer, Roger Taylor. Here’s how readers responded online: Lost my concert-going cherry to Queen as a wide-eyed and...

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Last week the Booker prize-winning novelist Julian Barnes reflected on memory and whether we can ever rely on our brains to provide the truth. Here is how readers responded online: I am 73 and have spent a significant part of the past two decades...

The big picture

For the past few years the Italian photographer Chantal Pinzi has been documenting the rebel spirit of female skateboarders, in a project she calls Shred the Patriarchy. Her original focus was on girls who skated in Morocco, in defiance of cultural...

Stalked

Hannah Mossman Moore spent years being abused by anonymous online figures. Her disturbing story is now the subject of a chart-topping podcast.

THE LEGACY OF LONG COVID

Five years after the pandemic struck, millions continue to struggle with prolonged, debilitating illness.

PAMELA ANDERSON

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR 20-YEAR-OLD SELF? DO YOU MISS YOUR YOUNG BAYWATCH BODY? DO YOU HAVE A DREAM ROLE YOU’D LIKE TO PLAY? HOW DID YOU BALANCE PARENTHOOD WITH FAME? WHAT DREW YOU TOWARDS VIVIENNE WESTWOOD?

Observer/Anthony Burgess prize: last chance to enter

Are you a budding culture reviewer? Do you come out of a new show or finish the last page of a book and itch to open your laptop and set down your thoughts about why you so enjoyed – or detested – it? The deadline – 28 February – is looming for the...

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Last week John Naughton wrote about the impact of China’s powerful new AI model DeepSeek. Here is how readers responded online: Why the surprise that China was capable of this? The Chinese have been successful in space and they manufacture Apple...

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Cancer rates for under-50s are on the rise, and last week Ayisha Sharma examined why. Here’s how readers responded online: I feel, broadly speaking, there are two trends going on. First, there is the continual microdosing of humans with a whole range...

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Last week, John Naughton wrote about how Mark Zuckerberg has had a Trump-friendly makeover. Here’s what you thought online: It’s sad that tech bros were once lauded as a breath of fresh air, mavericks, outsiders, rebels who would shake up the old...

You ask the questions

Director Gia Coppola had only one actor in mind to star in The Last Showgirl: Pamela Anderson. Having watched Ryan White’s Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, Coppola knew she would be perfect as Shelly Gardner, an ageing Las Vegas dancer facing...

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Last week, John Naughton wrote about how creaking US telecoms systems are vulnerable to foreign hacking groups. Here’s how readers responded online: The entire west, not just the US, faces a permanent hacking storm from China, Russia, and North Korea....

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Last week’s column by novelist AL Kennedy called for hope even in the most hopeless of times. Here’s how readers responded online: I thought this was a wonderful and thought-provoking article. I think the function of the poisonous language of the far...

The big picture

The photographer Colleen Kenyon made this new year portrait of her identical twin sister Kathleen in 1977. At the time the two of them were embarking on a shared artistic journey that put them at the forefront of feminist artists interested in...

FEATURING…

● TV quiz of the year ● Exclusive christmas Cluedle ● Jumbo crossword ● Whose lunch is this? And more…

ASIF KAPADIA’S DARK VISION

How the maker of documentaries Senna and Amy is taking on the rise of ‘techno-authoritarianism’ in his new film 2073 – with a little help from Carole Cadwalladr

Books of the year 2024

• Salman Rushdie • Colm Tóibín • Jonathan Coe • Samantha Harvey • Gillian Anderson • Elif Shafak • Andrew O’Hagan • Kevin Barry • Olivia Laing • Attica Locke • Michael Palin • Mick Herron

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In his column last week, Stewart Lee looked at how Jeremy Clarkson fired up his farming fanbase in reaction to the autumn budget. Here is how readers responded online: I’m old enough to remember when the opinionated pub bore was someone to be...

Rossellini’s renaissance

The Italian star on embracing offbeat roles – and ageing with style. Interview by Guy Lodge

The big picture

The Observer’s Jane Bown took this portrait of the painter Frank Auerbach in 1986, when he was chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. Auerbach, who died last week aged 93, was already by then a figure of renowned artistic compulsion....

You ask the questions Nicole Kidman

Is Nicole Kidman the hardest-working person in Hollywood? It’s more than four decades since the AustralianAmerican started acting, aged 16, yet she shows no sign of slowing down. As well as developing and producing projects through her own company,...

The big picture

This picture was taken at a famous photographic studio in Lagos in 1979. The studio, Abi Morocco, was run by a husband-and-wife team, John and Funmilayo Abe, from the 1970s to 2006, and captured images of generations of Nigerians during decades in...

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Last week, Miranda Sawyer wrote about why Britpop was much more than just Oasis v Blur. Here’s how readers responded online: The answer to the “Blur or Oasis” question was always, for me, Pulp and Suede. Remember Jarvis showing his arse to Michael...

The big picture

The photographer André Kertész chose his New York apartment carefully. Born in Hungary in 1894, Kertész served in the first world war, and lived and worked in Paris until 1936 when, with the Nazi threat spreading across Europe, he and his wife...

WHAT EZRA COLLECTIVE DID NEXT

The British band – the first jazz act to win the Mercury music prize – on their mission to spread joy and creativity. Interview by Miranda Sawyer

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Last week, Jude Rogers wrote about bassist Colin Greenwood’s photographs of his band, Radiohead. Here’s how readers responded online: I can still remember hearing Creep for the first time on a free tape given away by the NME, and buying Pablo Honey on...