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Mangrove photography awards 2023 – in pictures Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by About this content Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Winners and runners-up in the mangrove photography awards run by the Mangrove Action Project. This year, Soham Bhattacharyya was named mangrove photographer of the year for an image capturing the curious gaze of an endangered tigress in the Sundarbans [Read More]

BooksThe Glass PalaceAmitav Ghosh HarperCollins £6.99, pp551 Buy it at a discount at BOL Amitav Ghosh came to the attention of the literary world earlier this year when he refused the Best Book Prize from the Commonwealth Foundation. He resented being categorised as a Commonwealth writer, and also objected that the only works considered for the prize were those written in English. The Glass Palace chronicles the fortunes of a Burmese man, Rajkumar Raha, and his family. [Read More]

Associated Press This article is more than 11 months oldAP apologises and deletes widely mocked tweet about ‘the French’This article is more than 11 months oldOrganisation clarifies initial advice, which included term in list of phrases it thought could be dehumanising The Associated Press Stylebook, considered one of the most reliable guides to correct use of the English language for journalists, has apologised after producing a list of terms it thought could be dehumanising that included “the French”. [Read More]

The Amnesia rave, in the early 90s, when ecstasy was central to dance music culture. Photograph: Universal Images Group/Getty ImagesThe Amnesia rave, in the early 90s, when ecstasy was central to dance music culture. Photograph: Universal Images Group/Getty ImagesDrugsA new book, I Feel Love, explores the rollicking history of the 90s club drug turned 21st-century therapeutic treatment It was in 1975, when Carl Resnikoff and his girlfriend, Judith Gipson, took a bucolic ferry ride to Sausalito, a city located on the north end of Golden Gate Bridge, that a revolution in youth culture, music, emotion and imagination would take place. [Read More]

BIRDS AND THE BEESDogs, cats, horses and cattle are able to crossbreed but birds, fish and reptiles seemingly cannot. Why is that? Nic Maennling, Carleton Place Canada At the Birds of Prey centre in Newent, Glos. A breed of falcon is bred which is a cross between a Peregrine and a Lanner. The resulting hybrid has an even faster air velocity than the Peregrine, making it the fastest creature in the world. [Read More]

Kanye West This article is more than 13 years oldKanye West: 'I contemplated suicide'This article is more than 13 years oldRapper promises he 'will not give up on life again', saying he feels a responsibility to be a 'soldier for culture'Kanye West considered taking his own life several times in the past, he has claimed. The rapper made the admission at a US screening of his new short film, Runaway, but added he now feels a responsibility to be a " [Read More]

MusicMariah Carey compares Nicki Minaj to SatanThe diva recalls her time on the American Idol judging panel with little fondness, saying it was like "going to work in Hell every day, with Satan"R&B diva Mariah Carey and pop-rapper Nicki Minaj had no love lost between them when they appeared on the judging panel of American Idol together, and Mariah still doesn't remember the time fondly, telling a US radio interviewer that it was like " [Read More]

Book of the dayEssaysReviewAndrew O’Hagan scrutinises a trio of slippery figures in these vivid essays exploring the internet’s effect on our sense of selfThe internet has changed us, our means of communication, what we believe to be true, our identities and sense of self. That is a statement of such obviousness that we rarely stop to think about what it all actually means. But Andrew O’Hagan explores these themes with great depth and originality in three long essays – originally published in the London Review of Books – that make up his new collection, The Secret Life. [Read More]

The ObserverFictionReviewThis stimulating tale of a coder and his mum is a hyper-digital thriller with hints of Fifty Shades of Grey“I hardly read Irish writers any more,” said Julian Gough in 2010. “Novel after novel set in the 1970s, 60s, 50s... you wouldn’t know television had been invented.” Although Gough’s mischievous dig at his peers predated a startling upsurge of exceptional new fiction from Ireland in recent years, it’s fair to say that the current scene remains hyper-literary in flavour, with Beckettian dramatisations of consciousness (see Eimear McBride or Claire-Louise Bennett) more common than all-action thrills and spills of the kind dished up in Gough’s apocalyptic new novel, Connect, a hi-tech chase narrative in low-slung prose. [Read More]

Top 10sFood and drink booksFrom ‘quaking puddings’ to ‘syrup of tobacco’ and the first fry-up, the novelist serves up a feast of appetising reading I've spent the past three years researching and writing a novel set in the time of Charles I about an orphan who becomes the greatest cook of his age. John Saturnall's Feast takes place in the vast subterranean kitchens of the (fictional) Buckland Manor where John learns his craft. [Read More]