Piss, shit and blood
In laying bare the entrails of 18th-century society, claims Martin Rowson, Hogarth was the first modern journalist
Culture
Diary: Comic timing
Shappi Khorsandi reflects on the glamorous life of an atheist stand-up
Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties by Michael Lesy
Michael Binyon is not blown away by the Windy City
Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One’s Land by Sven Lundqvist
Daniel Miller is battered and bruised by Sven Lundqvist
The Comet Sweeper: Caroline Herschel’s Astronomical Ambitions by Claire Brock
Brenda Maddox is swept off her feet by an astronomical biography
The Blackest Bird: A Novel of History and Murder by Joel Rose
Martina Evans is haunted by the ghost of Poe
How Life Imitates Chess by Garry Kasparov
Winston Fletcher takes on Kasparov, and wins
Karoo by Steve Tesich
Michael Bywater rediscovers a masterly comic tragedy
Naughty but nice
Contemporary pornography is a hideous distortion of the joys of sex. Yet, argues Nina Power, it could all have been so different
What’s an infidel?
Jonathan Rée consults the latest humanist dictionary