James Meek

James Meek is a contributing editor at the LRB, and the author of several novels, of which the most recent are We Are Now Beginning Our Descent and The Heart Broke In.

In the LRB Archive:

• NHS SOS · 5 April 2018

• Against Passion: Passionate Politics · 30 November 2017

  • The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla
  • The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction by Mark Lilla

• Short Cuts: Fan-Owned Politics · 1 June 2017

• Somerdale to Skarbimierz · 20 April 2017

• Refugees from the Past: Jameson on Chandler · 5 January 2017

  • Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality by Fredric Jameson

• Diary · 28 July 2016

• Where are we now? Responses to the Referendum · 14 July 2016

• Video: The decline of fishing in Britain · 22 June 2016

• How to Grow a Weetabix: Farms and Farmers · 16 June 2016

• Trains in Space: The Great Train Robbery · 5 May 2016

  • The Railways: Nation, Network and People by Simon Bradley

• Robin Hood in a Time of Austerity · 18 February 2016

• Video: Robbing the Poor · 15 February 2016

• After the Vote · 17 December 2015

• Diary: Real Murderers! · 8 October 2015

• From Wooden to Plastic: Jonathan Franzen · 24 September 2015

  • Purity by Jonathan Franzen

• Why are you still here? · 23 April 2015

• Video: In Grimsby · 23 April 2015

• The Shock of the Pretty · 9 April 2015

• Worse than a Defeat: Shamed in Afghanistan · 18 December 2014

  • The Good War: Why We Couldn’t Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan by Jack Fairweather
  • Investment in Blood: The True Cost of Britain’s Afghan War by Frank Ledwidge
  • British Generals in Blair’s Wars edited by Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron and Hew Strachan
  • An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict 1978-2012 by Mike Martin

• In Farageland · 9 October 2014

• The Leopard · 19 June 2014

• Putin’s Counter-Revolution · 20 March 2014

• Where will we live?: The Housing Disaster · 9 January 2014

• Memories We Get to Keep: James Salter’s Apotheosis · 20 June 2013

  • All That Is by James Salter
  • Collected Stories by James Salter

• The Depositor Haircut · 9 May 2013

• How to Shoe a Flea: Nikolai Leskov · 25 April 2013

  • ‘The Enchanted Wanderer’ and Other Stories by Nikolai Leskov, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
  • The Enchanted Wanderer by Nikolai Leskov, translated by Ian Dreiblatt

• Short Cuts · 21 March 2013

• It’s the moral thing to do: ‘Breaking Bad’ · 3 January 2013

  • Breaking Bad: Complete Seasons 1-4 produced by Vince Gilligan

• Cloud-Brains: Mikhail Shishkin · 22 November 2012

  • Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin, translated by Marian Schwartz

• How We Happened to Sell Off Our Electricity · 13 September 2012

• Short Cuts: Yulia Tymoshenko · 7 June 2012

• The Debt Quilt · 10 May 2012

• Diary: Bobos for Boris? · 26 April 2012

• Human Revenue · 5 April 2012

• Diary: In Athens · 1 December 2011

• Short Cuts: In the Ghost Library · 3 November 2011

• It’s already happened: The NHS Goes Private · 22 September 2011

• In the Sorting Office · 28 April 2011

• Some Wild Creature: Tolstoy Leaves Home · 22 July 2010

  • The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910 by William Nickell
  • The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy translated by Cathy Porter
  • A Confession by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs
  • Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy by Donna Tussing Orwin

• On the Coalition · 10 June 2010

• Polly the Bleeding Parrot: David Peace · 6 August 2009

  • Occupied City by David Peace

• When the Floods Came: England’s Water · 31 July 2008

• Dead Not Deid: A Great Radical Modernist · 22 May 2008

  • Kieron Smith, Boy by James Kelman

• Hooyah!!: The Rise of the Private Army · 2 August 2007

  • Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill

• The Original Targets: The Birth of al-Qaida · 8 February 2007

  • The Looming Tower: Al-Qaida’s Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

• It’ll all be over one day: Our Man in Guantánamo · 8 June 2006

  • Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantánamo and Back by Moazzam Begg and Victoria Brittain

• In fonder times, the tsar scalded and stabbed to death a prince: Ivan the Terrible · 1 December 2005

  • Ivan the Terrible: First Tsar of Russia by Isabel de Madariaga

• Crocodile’s Breath: The Tale of the Tube · 5 May 2005

  • The Subterranean Railway: How the London Underground Was Built and How It Changed the City For Ever by Christian Wolmar

• Schlepping around the Flowers: bees · 4 November 2004

  • The Hive: The Story of the Honey-Bee and Us by Bee Wilson

• Reasons to be Miserable: The Day My Pants Froze · 8 July 2004

  • The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia out in the Cold by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy

• Trillion Dollar Disease: Fat · 7 August 2003

  • The Hungry Gene: The Science of Fat and the Future of Thin by Ellen Ruppel Shell

• Run to the hills: Rainspotting · 22 May 2003

  • Rain by Brian Cathcart

• Take a nap: keeping cool · 6 February 2003

  • Cool Comfort: America’s Romance with Air-Conditioning by M. Ackerman

• Every Young Boy’s Dream: Michel Houellebecq · 14 November 2002

  • Platform by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Frank Wynne

• Everyone has a voice: Biotechnology · 11 July 2002

  • A Grain of Truth: the Media, the Public and Biotechnology by Susanna Hornig Priest
  • Travels in the Genetically Modified Zone by Mark Winston
  • Seeds of Contention: World Hunger and the Global Controversy over GM Crops by Per Pinstrup-Andersen

• If they’re ill, charge them extra: Flamingo Plucking · 21 March 2002

  • Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
  • Salt: Grain of Life by Pierre Laszlo, translated by Mary Beth Mader

• Where does the rubble end and the ground begin?: in Afghanistan · 3 January 2002

• Nuremberg Rally, Invasion of Poland, Dunkirk …: the never-ending wish to write about the Second World War · 6 September 2001

  • Ghost MacIndoe by Jonathan Buckley
  • The Twins by Tessa de Loo
  • Riptide by John Lawton
  • The Day We Had Hitler Home by Rodney Hall
  • Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
  • The Fire Fighter by Francis Cottam
  • The Element of Water by Stevie Davies
  • The Bronze Horsewoman by Paullina Simons
  • The Siege by Helen Dunmore

• We Do Ron Ron Ron, We Do Ron Ron: Welcome to McDonald’s · 24 May 2001

  • Fast-Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

• The reproduce, but they don’t eat, breathe or excrete: The history of viruses · 22 March 2001

  • The Invisible Enemy: A Natural History of Viruses by Dorothy Crawford

• Sex is best when you lose your head · 16 November 2000

  • Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition and Sexual Conflict by Tim Birkhead

• Drowned in the Desert · 20 July 2000

  • A Fly for the Prosecution: How Insect Evidence Helps Solves Crimes by Lee Goff

• Chemical Soup: embalming Lenin’s body · 18 March 1999

  • Lenin's Embalmers by Ilya Zbarsky and Samuel Hutchinson

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