The Joy of Six 1294

"Al-Fayed died before he could face justice but imagine how many women’s lives would not have been ruined if anti-SLAPP legislation had been in place and journalists had been able to report freely on the case," Labour MP Joe Powell tells Gareth Davies et al. from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Aaron Rabinowitz says we need to talk about men: "Trump has doubled his share of Black male voters, and across all racial demographics his gains were highest among younger men. As always, problems like this are intersectional and multifaceted, but one of the crucial facets we need to discuss is clearly the persistent problem of disaffected men."

"For the last decade, the question of who gets to interrogate historical questions, and why they are motivated to do so, has become very fraught in Britain. And the topics that have become most central to this controversy are the British Empire, British imperialism, and ideas about race, identity and belonging in the British nation." Charlotte Lydia Riley reflects on recent controversies in history and the emotional register of the debate.

Octavia Randoph on slavery in Anglo-Saxon England.

"In The Secret Agent, you go from a shop in Soho into a space like Greenwich Park, where the bomb incident takes place – quite an interesting journey in itself – and then, at the end, there’s an extraordinary marching-away into the suburbs of one of the characters who walks through endless anonymous, curious areas." Iain Sinclair chooses five favourite London novels.

Tanya Lynch visits the Poetry Pharmacy in Bishop's Castle: "From the moment I stepped inside this Aladdin’s Cave, I was immersed in a world where poetry and books are the ultimate remedy for the soul. Shelves lined with carefully selected publications, pages that invite you to lose yourself in their rhythm, and beautifully designed stationery, that makes you want to pick up and a pen and start journaling your heart out - honestly this store is a bibliophile’s paradise.