Thursday, May 29, 2025

Books

The afterlife of stories: The art and ambiguity of literary retellings

Love, betrayal, justice, jealousy: these are timeless themes, woven into the human experience for millennia. It’s no surprise, then, that they have shaped our literature for so long. They...
Books Saskia Maini -

What books do professors of different subjects read?

In discussion of ‘the great man theory’, Professor Dominic Scott discussed his recent reading...
Books Harriet Breakey -

Review: The Boys by Leo Robson – ‘Sparkling, enjoyable, sad’

There is a passage in James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity (1943) in which an...
Books Hassan Akram -

Periodisation and the problem of now

Periodisation is the act of dividing literature into eras like Romanticism, Modernism, or Postmodernism...
Books Ava Doherty -
Latest

Why reading for pleasure still matters at Oxford

The idea of students reading for pleasure during term time has sparked much debate. Simply put though, Oxford’s intensive schedule makes it near-impossible. The...

The Pasts Contained in Preloved Books at the Oxford Premier Book Fair

Although post-collections celebrations usually involve nights out, followed by long, long lie-ins, I spent Saturday morning taking the bus to the Oxford Brookes Headington...

Review of ‘Intermezzo’: Chess, law, and the philosophy of language in yet another Rooney masterpiece

I thought it perplexing that critics felt Intermezzo similar to other works by writer Sally Rooney. Certainly, it shares some familiar ingredients: it’s set...

Review: Allegro Pastel by Leif Randt

Tanja Arnheim and Jerome Aimler are Millennials in a long-distance relationship. Tanja is a Berlin-based novelist and Jerome a Frankfurt-based web designer. They text...

Writers on Writing: Reflections on the 2025 Oxford Literary Festival

The Oxford Literary Festival is one of those events I hear about every year, mark out on my calendar, and never end up going...

Joanna Miller’s ‘The Eights’: Unapologetically, indulgently Oxford

Do not worry: despite the title, this is not a rowing novel. Instead, the term ‘The Eights’ in Miller’s novel refers to the four...

A Trinity trail of Oxford’s best reads and retreats

Trinity Term has come upon us faster than the lovely magnolia has blossomed, which means the weather has warmed up, the sun is out,...

Lessons in Censorship: A Cautionary Tale against Bodleian Blacklists 

For some authors, the Bodleian Libraries have not always a safe haven for their work. Although marginalised texts are no longer demarcated with the phi symbol on their spines, with many having re-entered the undergraduate canon, Sophie Price discusses the valuable lessons we can learn from the Bodleian blacklist which remain pertinent today.

Should ‘Orbital’ have won The Booker Prize? 

Laurence Cooke reviews Samantha Harvey's 'Orbital', the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.

The Secret History Characters as Oxford Tropes

Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History is set in an exclusive college in Vermont but can be read as a satire of Oxford and its students. It invites us to question how little differentiates us from the elitist American universities.

Review: The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

There are some writers whose line of literary descent is so clear as to resemble a kind of genealogical chart. The lineage of the...

BookTok: The Last Page of the Publishing Industry?

The #booktok stands that have become fixtures of bookshops across the country inspire intense feelings in me. It’s a mix of guilty curiosity, superiority,...

Defiance: Racial Injustice, Police Brutality, A Sister’s Fight for the Truth by Janet Alder

At Oxford’s Wesley Memorial Church, Janet Alder offered a harrowing and unflinching account of resilience in the face of systemic injustice.

Review: Making the Weather: Six Politicians Who Shaped Modern Britain by Vernon Bogdanor

Six essays are included here, one for each Carlylean “great man”, covering biographical and ideological context as well as political analysis.

A literary map of Oxford

Look no further for the perfect afternoon dawdle, as you chase the ghosts of literary greats through the town.

Should we judge a book by its cover?

Maybe we need to start giving a chance to the books we wouldn't usually take a second glance at. 

Reinventing the epistolary novel

It looks like, then, the epistolary novel isn’t dying out completely—just reinventing itself.

Review: May We Be Forgiven by A.M Homes

Weird and wonderful. Heavy at times, strange throughout, but uplifting to the end. An incredible read.

The best books I read this summer

In a desperate attempt to extend the holiday, here are the best books I read this summer...

Review: The Safe Keep by Yael Van der Wouden

In not necessarily liking Isabel, we are free to understand her, even if this understanding does boil down to something rather simple.
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