Neil McCarthy

On Good Friday five years ago (a year after all the proof needed had been published showing that lockdown was pointless) Boris Johnson’s Conservative administration was still doubling down on this anti-science, Chinese-inspired oppression. Nothing was sacred in Boris Johnson’s bleak Britain – not even the right to worship.

His final novel strikes a rare note of hope among his usual cynicism and despair. Share Topics Books Culture Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. French master Michel Houellebecq has said that his latest novel, Annihilation, will be his last. If that does prove to be true, his departure will deprive us of a rare literary voice. There is simply no one quite like Houellebecq.

Lionel Shriver's Mania is a stunning satire of progressive intolerance. Share Topics Books Culture Politics Want to read spiked ad-free? Become a spiked supporter. Amid the conformism of contemporary literary culture, a new book by Lionel Shriver is always going to be an exciting event. At the very least, ‘the Cassandra of American letters’, as the New York Times once christened her, always has something challenging to say. Mania is no exception.