The nun’s head covering hid her hair, but I imagined she was brunette; her skin colouring was a golden brown, her eyebrows dark and well defined. She carried a small ...
“Can ‘modern’ ever equate with ‘enjoyment’ in art or books? And should we worry if it doesn’t?” Michael Spring answers this question, in an essay that takes us from Larkin ...
Despite new rules outlining a fresh global outlook, the Man Booker Prize’s 2014 longlist is a failure of imagination and mission. Continue Reading Meet the New Booker, Same ...
“‘I don’t really listen to lyrics’. I must have heard this statement, or variations on it, hundreds of times, and perhaps the most unnerving element is not that I hear ...
“The first ‘song’ I ever wrote was ‘Baby.’ Inverted commas because a) everyone else does, the fools, and b) it’s got a verse, a chorus, and a second verse and ...
“Meanwhile, the marks of the recent hostilities are everywhere and the city of Freetown has the feel of a town not quite yet itself.” When George Tregson Roberts returns to ...
As part of our current Music theme, Marie Gethins recalls the concert that changed her summer. Continue Reading Boston Tattoo
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Bye-bye Gove! In the second part of his essay on Gove and education, Oliver Belas reminds us of everything that was wrong with the departed Education Secretary’s approach to the ...
In the final piece in our Words & Music series, Miles Hunt of The Wonder Stuff reminisces about the books that have influenced him over the years. Continue ...
Our Words & Music series continues, as Eddie Argos – singer with acclaimed band Art Brut – reveals the influence of Richmal Crompton’s Just William stories on his rock’n’roll persona. ...
The third piece in our short Words & Music series takes a more classical approach, as May Robertson of the Keats Quartet explains the reasons behind their literary name. ...
In the second installment in our Words & Music series – in which musicians talk about the books that have influenced them – Mychal Cohen of Campfire O.K. discusses the ...
The first of a short series in which musicians discuss their favourite works of literature – Andy Bothwell (aka Astronautalis) on Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War. ...
“Not having the requisite funds for even the first semester, I do the only logical thing. I head down to the nearest jazz bar, drink a lot of Louisiana beer ...
Linda Fawke recalls perilous flights in and out of Lukla Airport, at the start of the Everest trail. Continue Reading A Dangerous Glimpse of Nepal
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“English, as a subject without a discipline or method, can readily accommodate most methodologies and the subject-areas those methodologies betoken. Indeed, there are very few areas of cultural life that ...
“Maximo had asked me whether I could serve—not everyone can, he added… Through it all, the figures in the Help Wanted ad from the Dallas Morning News beamed at me ...
“Despite writing a book that was probably responsible for sending more kids into the big open world than the Lonely Planet, Kerouac was always more comfortable in America than abroad. ...
“There was only one thing for it: to beg. At first I ran around the airport with a cheap phone I had picked up. ‘Desea comprar este’, I said to ...
Sean Beaudoin recalls a childhood spent living in the grounds of one of America’s most notorious mental institutions. Continue Reading I Remember: Fairfield Hills
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