{"id":489545,"date":"2025-10-10T23:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489545\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T23:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T23:25:11","slug":"five-great-reads-a-grand-book-heist-being-outed-as-an-ira-guy-and-the-desperate-mishandling-of-the-israel-gaza-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/489545\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Great Reads: a grand book heist, being outed as an IRA guy, and the desperate mishandling of the Israel-Gaza conflict |"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. This week brought the two-year anniversary of <\/strong>the Hamas attack into Israel and the war in Gaza. The past 48 hours has seen a ceasefire deal<\/a> many hope could bring a halt to the violence \u2013 though as one diplomat involved in the talks said: \u201cThe tragedy is that this could have all been agreed 20 months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

This weekly round-up of essential reads begins with a sober view on the conflict from the Guardian\u2019s global diplomatic editor. There\u2019s also some lighter fare.<\/p>\n

I hope you find something here that makes you think.<\/p>\n

1. Diplomacy\u2019s lowest point: how the Israel-Gaza conflict was mishandledIn two years, there have been many versions of a \u2018day after\u2019 plan for Gaza and many obstacles to overcome. Composite: Guardian Design\/AP\/EPA\/Reuters\/ Pool\/Jim LoScalzo – Pool\/CNP\/Shutterstock\/ZUMA Press Wire<\/p>\n

Donald Trump may have claimed success in Gaza, but as Patrick Wintour writes<\/a>, \u201cThe destruction, the death toll and the spillover of the conflict into other countries is a monument to shame diplomacy and what remains of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a growing consensus across the west \u2026 <\/strong>\u201cthat this conflict was desperately mishandled, including by European leaders who initially ceded responsibility to a US Democratic administration that romanticised modern Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

And a major shift in thinking: \u201c<\/strong>We have changed the mindset,\u201d French foreign minister, Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot, said after Arab states in September backed the exclusion of Hamas from Gaza. \u201cEveryone now sees Hamas for what they are: a terrorist organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

How long will it take to read: <\/strong>about five minutes<\/p>\n

Further reading: <\/strong>the Guardian\u2019s global series<\/a> marking this week\u2019s anniversary, including this piece bearing witness to the 18,457 children<\/a> on Gaza\u2019s \u201cfar from comprehensive\u201d list of war dead.<\/p>\n

And if you want more on Trump \u2026 <\/strong>who may or may not have won the Nobel peace prize<\/a> by the time you read this, Andrew Roth\u2019s analysis<\/a> on how the US president\u2019s desire for the award is driving global diplomacy is fascinating.<\/p>\n

2. When you find out your boyfriend is working for the IRAMary Attenborough and Michael Gallagher in Ireland in 2025. Photograph: Alan Lavender<\/p>\n

In 1996, police crashed into the London home that Mary Attenborough, an academic (specialty: geophysical software), shared with Michael Gallagher (former civil servant, helped homeless alcoholics). When he was arrested on suspicion of IRA activity, she was shocked and indignant. Then he was charged, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n

He only confessed to her after his conviction.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re still together. <\/strong>And have co-written a book<\/a>, confirming, as Ireland correspondent Rory Carroll reports, that Gallagher \u201cwas, in fact, guilty \u2013 that he was an IRA fixer who facilitated multiple operations, including the Heathrow attack\u201d.<\/p>\n

The real betrayal? <\/strong>Gallagher had once wowed Attenborough by completing the Guardian\u2019s cryptic crossword in three minutes. But while writing the book, he disclosed another decades-old secret: before speedily completing the crossword in her copy of the Guardian, he had done it earlier in his own.<\/p>\n

How long will it take to read: <\/strong>two minutes<\/p>\n

3. The armed robber who went straightJohn McAvoy: \u2018Being in prison and being in solitude and isolation for years, it definitely shaped me as an athlete.\u2019 Photograph: James Mitchell<\/p>\n

John McAvoy\u2019s stepfather was a serious criminal. His uncle was in a heist gang \u2013 and played by Sean Bean in the film Fool\u2019s Gold. McAvoy followed them into crime, and into England\u2019s harshest prisons. But as Chris Godfrey finds out<\/a>, in the prison gym, McAvoy found the route to turn things around.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s a serious athlete and a campaigner for prison reform. He empathises with teenagers who have romanticised criminal and gang life: \u201c<\/strong>It\u2019s a very toxic, horrible world. Once you get in it, it\u2019s very difficult to remove yourself from it \u2026 I understand how they can get sucked into that world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I was young, I could tell the stuff he had on was very expensive.\u201d \u2013 John McAvoy remembering meeting his stepfather, also an armed robber, at the age of eight.<\/p>\n

How long will it take to read: <\/strong>eight-and-a-half minutes<\/p>\n

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Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

4. How Jilly Cooper changed the world \u2013 one bonkbuster at a timeThe Guardian\u2019s photo database has captioned this, \u2018Jilly Cooper relaxing at home with her two mongrel dogs and three cats and a glass of white wine.\u2019 Absolutely no notes. Photograph: Graham Wood\/Daily Mail\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Apropos of flashy money: no one writes about it like Jilly Cooper, who died this week after 88 years and some 11m books sold. As Zoe Williams writes<\/a>, her raunchy, tightly-written romances are a category unto themselves: not just about sex (there\u2019s an abundance), money (also plenty of that), Tory-coded social mores (lots of those, too), or the lush, frothy beauty of the English countryside (constant). As Olivia Laing points out<\/a>, significant slabs of these novels are devoted to the slog of work. And loving animals.<\/p>\n

I bought my first Jilly Cooper in the secondhand section of a bookshop I worked at in my twenties: mid-shift, my friend Octavia and I saw our names splashed in yellow and orange across two of those soft-focus covers \u2013 hard to believe, impossible to resist.<\/p>\n

How long will it take to read: <\/strong>this article? Less than four minutes. But consider, if you will, The Rutshire Chronicles audiobooks \u2013 hundreds of hours drifting through space to the fruity tones of Sherry Baines\u2019s narration. Can\u2019t recommend enough.<\/p>\n

Further reading: <\/strong>A real-life story from this week worthy of Dame Jilly \u2026 Juhea Kim was working 80-hour weeks in New York \u2013 31, single, and burned out. Could a string of dates with French men bring back her joie de vivre<\/a>?<\/p>\n

5. \u2018Like gouging out the crown jewels\u2019A book of Alexander Pushkin\u2019s poetry amid debris in a damaged apartment in Donetsk oblast, Ukraine, January 2024. Photograph: Global Images Ukraine\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Between 2022 and 2023, dozens of rare editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. As one Estonian prosecutor reflects: \u201cLibraries just aren\u2019t used to thinking of themselves as targets for major crime.\u201d But was it low-level opportunists, or something more sinister? The Guardian\u2019s Europe culture editor, Philip Oltermann, dives in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The tactic: <\/strong>two people would use fake IDs to order up rare books from the stacks. If they were being watched, one would distract the librarians while the other walked out.<\/p>\n

The common denominator: <\/strong>the work of early 19th-century Romantic poet and playwright Alexander Pushkin.<\/p>\n

How long will it take to read: <\/strong>12 or so minutes<\/p>\n

A more local literary puzzle: <\/strong>Elizabeth Harrower wrote some of Australia\u2019s best novels, then disappeared for decades. As her biographer Susan Wyndham puts it<\/a>, even she wasn\u2019t sure why. (Bonus book rec: Harrower\u2019s In Certain Circles.)<\/p>\n

Have a lovely weekend.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t forget to vote for the 2025 Australian bird of the year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up<\/p>\n

If you would like to receive these Five Great Reads to your email inbox every weekend, sign up here<\/a>. And check out out the full list of our local and international newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. This week brought the two-year anniversary of the Hamas attack into Israel and the war in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-489545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115352458665388101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}