A shocking image of Syria's brutal war – a war that will continue regardless | Jonathan Jones

Even the most horrific photos are not able to prevent wars happening, they remain decoration for our conscienceThis week the Guardian published the kind of picture that deserves to change the world. The front page of Thursday's print edition was dominated by an epic scene of human suffering, reproduced above. In a canyon between grey shattered precipices of bomb-ravaged buildings, an uncountable number of people wait for food. The faces in the front of the vast desperate crowd are anxious, stoical, subdued; beyond is a sea of heads whose expressions are unreadable but guessably similar.This is a great photograph – and it wants the world to act. It was released by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and shows what happened when aid workers tried to give out food parcels at Yarmouk refugee camp on the edge of Damascus. The picture illuminates the mind-boggling devastation of the war in Syria: tottering jumbles of concrete and plaster gaping with voids and caverns, are all that is left of this cityscape. Above all, it captures the sheer scale of human suffering with this horribly mesmerising sea of faces.But will it make a difference? It is intended as a campaigning picture, not a work of art. Here are the facts from one small part of Syria; here is the fate of part of the Palestinian people.When I look at photographs that try to move the world to compassionate action I am haunted by Jurgen Stroop. In the 1940s, Stroop, the SS General who led the final attack on the... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2014-02-28 00:00:00 UTC ]

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Indie booksellers honor Ottessa Moshfegh, Jonathan Lethem and the Natural History Museum

Southern California Independent Booksellers Association honors 2019 award winners Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-10-02 01:12:51 UTC ]
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Mars-Jones wins Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize

Adam Mars-Jones has won the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize for Box Hill, his "strangely tragic love story" set in the gay biker community during the late 1970s. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-22 18:21:05 UTC ]
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Octopus snaps up war hero and BGT winner Colin Thackery’s memoir

Octopus Publishing Group will publish My Story: How Love Changed Everything by Colin Thackery, the life story of a war hero and winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2019.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-22 14:59:25 UTC ]
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This week's L.A. book talks have Demi Moore, Jonathan Safran Foer and Annalee Newitz

What to do in L.A.: 5 book talks for the week ahead include Demi Moore discussing her memoir 'Inside Out' and Jonathan Safran Foer on 'We Are the Weather.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-09-20 20:19:53 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape's Dan Franklin to retire

Dan Franklin, associate publisher at Jonathan Cape, is due to retire after 26 years at the Vintage imprint. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-16 09:22:10 UTC ]
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Michael Joseph’s Louise Jones returns to Ebury

Michael Joseph’s Louise Jones is to return to Ebury as creative and communications director to oversee the marketing and publicity across the publisher’s new hub structure. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-13 10:29:04 UTC ]
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Weekly E-Ranking: Logan’s run continues at the top

Once again, T M Logan's The Holiday cruised into the Weekly E-Book Ranking number one, for a fourth week in total. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-12 20:40:02 UTC ]
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Alan Lightman’s ‘Three Flames’ examines the long shadow of Cambodia’s civil war

In a country that has suffered so much, it turns out to be the women in this novel who suffer the most. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-09-11 22:29:40 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape signs debut short story collection from Leviston

Jonathan Cape has scooped UK and Commonwealth rights to Frances Leviston’s story collection The Voice in My Ear. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-09 21:28:41 UTC ]
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Democracy overboard: Rupert Murdoch's long war on Australian politics | Kevin Rudd

Australia has become a dangerously complacent country, dancing to the reactionary tune of the Murdoch pressAustralia has become the complacent country. Complacent about its future economic competitiveness. Complacent about climate change. Complacent about how to navigate our future in the region... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-09-06 20:00:48 UTC ]
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Bethan Jones becomes commissioning editor at S&S UK

Bethan Jones has been appointed to the role of commissioning editor for fiction at Simon & Schuster UK following an eight-month stint of maternity cover. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-04 07:59:35 UTC ]
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“Dear House, Don’t Burn”: On Svetlana Alexievich’s “Last Witnesses: An Oral History of the Children of World War II”

I FIRST HEARD ABOUT Svetlana Alexievich from a friend in my writing group who was reading the Belarusian author’s Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War (1990, trans. 1992), a book based on hundreds of interviews with those who lost their sons in Afghanistan. The title of the book... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-09-02 12:30:01 UTC ]
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Lost Girls by DJ Taylor review – love, war and literature 1939-51

An urbane attempt to offer belated autonomy to a small band of well-born, well-connected young womenThe scene with which DJ Taylor begins his 26th book, Lost Girls, in which a girl enters, with some trepidation, a literary party in a house in Bloomsbury, is striking for many reasons. It is, as... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-08-31 07:58:41 UTC ]
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S&S Children's UK nets Richard Jones picture book

Simon & Schuster Children’s UK has acquired a dog-themed picture book from Richard Jones, his first as both author and illustrator. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-28 16:59:01 UTC ]
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Oneworld scoops novel from Women's Prize-winner Jones

Oneworld has scooped another novel from Women’s Prize-winner Tayari Jones, a "compelling story of two half-sisters bound by family secrets". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-18 12:05:38 UTC ]
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Horrors of World War II, through children’s eyes

Svetlana Alexievich collects the memories of those who witnessed tragedy at a young age. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-08-16 12:33:20 UTC ]
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Revisiting ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ and the Balkan Wars

In Téa Obreht’s 2011 debut novel “The Tiger’s Wife,” a young doctor untangles the peculiar circumstances of her grandfather’s recent death. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2019-08-16 09:00:01 UTC ]
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Tributes paid after Gay's The Word founder Jonathan Cutbill dies, aged 82

Tributes have been paid to Gay’s The Word bookshop co-founder Jonathan Cutbill, who has passed away aged 82 after a period of ill health. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-15 17:00:19 UTC ]
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The female spies who helped liberate World War II France

Sarah Rose recounts the bravery and sacrifices of 39 British women in the lead-up to D-Day. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2019-08-09 15:34:06 UTC ]
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