The ObserverSociety booksReviewGoodhart makes a strong case for reviving the status of work outside the ‘knowledge economy’, as the age of automation approaches
When my old school went from grammar to comprehensive in 1972, the headmaster, Frank Brewin, felt he should prepare the ground with the existing cohort of pupils, which included my brother. He warned them not to look down on the new intake from the local secondary modern, saying: “Some people are good with their heads, and some are good with their hands. Read More...
FictionReviewA self-destructive young waitress unravels in a fierce and elegant first novel that takes working-class life seriously
Merritt Tierce’s debut novel is a stylishly brutal account of the life of a waitress working in a series of Texas restaurants. The protagonist, Marie, suffers from a litany of misfortunes, whose sheer number may at first seem wearying: self-harm, compulsive promiscuity, drug abuse, squalid poverty, teen pregnancy. Furthermore, they are all introduced in the first 30 pages in a dizzying collage of vignettes. Read More...
The ObserverDocumentary filmsReviewJason Kohn’s thoroughly entertaining film explodes the myth and mystique around diamonds and the De Beers cartel
Once in a while there comes a documentary that has the potential to permanently shift the way you look at its subject. Nothing Lasts Forever is one of them. Jason Kohn’s witty, highly entertaining film takes aim at the diamond industry, at the “cartel” operated by De Beers, at the manufactured idea of a diamond’s worth (they are not, in fact, the precious rarity that we are led to believe). Read More...
