With Lucy Dallas and Toby Lichtig. The TLS critic David Collard explores the idiosyncratic worlds of Ian Nairn – architectural critic, psychogeographer, “a cross between Anthony Burgess and Tony Hancock” – and describes Nairn’s influence on a generation of authors, including Simon Okotie, whose new novel he’s also reviewed in this week’s TLS. The paper's biography editor Catharine Morris tells the story of Tuco, the African grey parrot, and his influence on the life and work of the novelist Brian Brett. Lisa Hilton explains why the Marquis de Sade is a progressive moral satirist and a “rotten pornographer”.
