Saturday Links

The faith of England’s prime ministers, Amish magic, New York’s supertalls, boring young novelists, and more.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Good morning! First up, Edward Short reviews a “lively” new history of the religious beliefs of England’s prime ministers: “In God In Number 10, Mark Vickers revisits the faith of the country’s twentieth-century prime ministers, from Balfour and Churchill to Macmillan and Brown, to show that while England might have become a secularized society in his period, it never became an irreligious one. The appeal of the faith so central to the country’s history and identity survived, even if it was often left unheeded.”

Maybe this book will turn out to be charming, but the title is terrible, and the rest of it probably will be, too: “A poetry collection edited by Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey will be published in November, and will contain contributions from Russell Brand, Maxine Peake and Michael Rosen. Poetry for the Many will feature the favourite poems of the former Labour leader and the trade unionist, along with their commentary . . .  Poetry for the Many will encourage readers to ‘embrace poetry and shake off any notion that it is not something to be read, written, or appreciated by working-class people’, Murphy said.”