Top 10sBooksMarianne Elliott: top 10 Irish history booksMarianne Elliott is director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool University and author of Catholics of Ulster: a History and Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence, which won the Irish Independent/Irish Life prize for biography. Her latest book is Robert Emmet: The Making of a Legend, about the leader of the doomed July 1803 rebellion.
1. The Making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923 by JC BeckettJC Beckett's overview is an important milestone in Irish historiography, a lucid combination of factual information and reasoned analysis by one of the recognised giants of modern Irish history. Read More...
Sex Pistols This article is more than 7 years oldNot pretty, not vacant: Sex Pistols' London home given listed statusThis article is more than 7 years oldHouse where band lived in 70s is decorated with graffiti drawn by John Lydon, and has been awarded second highest form of listing
Punks may have been the sworn enemies of government and all its institutions but that is not stopping the heritage body Historic England bestowing on them a rare privilege. Read More...
Autobiography and memoirReviewSontag's thoughts on heartache, politics – and her legsThe title of the second volume of Susan Sontag's diaries comes from a note in the margin next to an entry from 1965: "spiritual project – but tied to making an object (as consciousness is harnessed to flesh)". It is a curious phrase, suggesting the paradox that is art: a real, tangible thing resulting from a long, indefinable process. It evokes, too, the duality of Sontag herself: the public figure, whose provocative essays can seem to readers intimidatingly confident, and the mind that made them – which, as her diaries reveal, was unusually full of pain. Read More...