Blogs about Books and literature

Next week, folks around the world will be taking part in a unique collective reading event: #1937Club, the next installment of a semi-annual celebration started some years ago by Karen (Kaggsy) and Simon Thomas. The …

"I count meself lucky. Me disposition allows is to laugh at how the landscape colours me illusions of life and me place within it. How I use them to interpret faulted interactions and what it …

I seriously ask myself, What is the meaning of all this? Why raise questions, throw lights, or see shadows? Wouldn’t it be better if I buried my tears in the sand on a seashore in …

The Enlightenment produced many great thinkers, but Immanuel Kant stands out as one of the most influential philosophers in history. As celebrations take place around the world to mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, …

Today's links "Humans in the loop" must detect the hardest-to-spot errors, at superhuman speed: The particular torments of reverse-centaurs are drastically under-theorized. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2009, 2014, …

In 1927, a pair of lurid “translations” appeared in English, marketed as authentic tales by Giovanni Boccaccio and illustrated with supposedly new works by Aubrey Beardsley. Jonah Lubin and Maria Laurids Lazzarotti search for the …

Shirley L, born in North Wales in 1944, is an artist. She and her husband lived abroad and around the UK because of his work, before retiring to Sheffield in 2004. She is a keen …

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Early on in Brad Tyer's book about the town of Opportunity he makes a telling point about the brochures that advertise the tourist mecca of Montana. It is supposed to be an "otherworldly landscape filled …

Review by Elaine Simpson-Long When Alexander Larman wrote The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication about Edward VIII, he had no idea that it would be the beginning of a trilogy. The second part, …

Title: The Murder at the VicarageAuthor: Agatha ChristiePublication: Dodd, Mead & Co., hardcover, first published in 1930Genre: Mystery/seriesDescription: When Colonel Protheroe, a domineering retiree in the village of St. Mary Mead, is murdered, there are …

While distant reading has taught us a lot about the history of fiction, it hasn’t done much yet to explain why we keep turning pages. “Suspense” is the word we use to explain that impulse. …

It’s I think maybe six weeks or even longer now that I have stopped using my computer and the internet (apart from wifi radio on dedicated devices) on weekends. And I’m loving it, and it …

Kind met doodshoofd (Vanitas), Simon van de Passe, after Crispijn van de Passe (I), 1612 The last days of dear old winter. Much of this year spent in a haze, reading little but well. I …

After the International Booker Prize shortlist was released a couple of weeks back, our Shadow Panel announced an intention to publish our own final selection on the 30th of April. However, with the majority of …

Barcelona is all about roses, books and lovers on April 23rd each year. In Catalonia World Book Day also becomes an especially romantic festival. People celebrate the day of their patron saint, Sant Jordi (Saint …

Reluctant to wait for the first translations of Mircea Cărtărescu’s latest novel to start coming out in the second half of 2024, I taught myself enough Romanian to read it in the original. This “pseudo-historical …

‘Mabel and I were craving graham crackers and milk,’ the caption reads. ‘So we made sourdough graham crackers and dipped them in fresh milk. It was just what we needed!’ The video shows a woman …

There is a new Sebald conference coming next month in Bavaria. Below is (more or less) a Google translation of the original German announcement, and the German original can be found immediately following the English …

Dry Land by B. Pladek (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023) In the woods of Wisconsin, a young forester named Rand Brandt learns that he can grow any plant he imagines in minutes, merely by touching …