Monday 25th August 2025

Books

Reading Oxford books in Oxford

For those who have not even set foot in Oxford, the city still lives in their imaginations alongside elite debates, candlelit balls and formals, tempestuous love stories, and mysterious,...

How radio changed the literary landscape: The Bodleian’s ‘Listen In’

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a...

Running on treadmills: Milan Kundera’s meditations on Slowness

Sometimes it takes a new word to express an old feeling. Until the age...

What the book you’re reading says about you

In an institution as prestigious as Oxford, every book you pull out in public...

The Masque of the Red Death: Reading our way out of a crisis

Edgar Allan Poe wrote his short story, the Masque of the Red Death, after his wife had been diagnosed with the then-incurable disease, tuberculosis....

Lost in Translation

In an age of globalised literature and artificial intelligence translation tools, to examine the function of literary translators is to question the substance of...

Friday Favourite: Crush

When I was a kid, I would re-read the books I found exciting, and which had characters I 'got on with' – a lot...

More profit-interest than philanthropy in new Twilight prequel ‘Midnight Sun’

Confession time: I was a Twilight fan. It’s not as damning as the image that probably comes to mind – I honestly don’t remember...

Review: Normal People – from book to screen

When it was announced last year that Sally Rooney’s second novel, Normal People, would be adapted into a BBC and Hulu television series, the excitement...

Friday Favourite: Amantes de cartón

Amid the national and global chaos, Hugo Ortega’s new book of poetry Amantes de cartón (Cardboard Lovers) is a quiet yet powerful exploration of...

Review: Lost Horizon

Of all the emotions that may be stirred in one during the current Coronavirus lockdown, tranquility is perhaps not the most obvious choice. Yet...

On the misuse of Orwell

The habit of thoughtlessly quoting or referencing George Orwell in political debate has become, like so many bad habits, so common that it is...

Sense and Sexibility: A definitive ranking of Austen’s leading men

Welcome to my definitive ranking of Austen’s romantic heroes and, as an auxiliary ranking that I was not actually asked to add, my favourite...

Review: The Artist’s Way

This is both a book review and a book recommendation. Julia Cameron’s book - The Artist’s Way - is the perfect book to pick...

A country without libraries: what we are missing

You might think that working in a library would be a nice, peaceful job. That’s what I thought too. After spending two years working...

Friday Favourite: The Neapolitan Quartet

In a rare interview with LA Times in 2018, Elena Ferrante, universally-celebrated, elusive (the name is a pseudonym) author of the Neapolitan novels, was...

Review: Lovecraft Country

I bought Lovecraft Country back in term time, and, as with far too many books, didn’t get around to reading it until much later....

‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’: Big Read

‘The guests are met, the feast is set’ and the Ancient Mariner Big Read has begun. On 18th April, the project released its first instalment:...

Reading ‘Neurotribes’ in Autism Acceptance Month

This Autism Awareness Month, I decided to become more aware of the history of the condition I’ve lived with my entire life but was only diagnosed...

Friday Favourite: A Month in the Country

Sometimes you reread a book because it is beautiful; sometimes you do it because a mysterious benefactor on your flight gave you a concerning...

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: A study of depression during confinement

TW: discussion of mental illness, suicide “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.” As the...

Friday Favourite: The Waves

The Waves by Virginia Woolf is a book that I unapologetically love. As an English student with a long reading list, I don’t tend...

Oxford love can hurt like this

Okay, I thought, when I found myself two weeks into lockdown: NOW is the time to finally read that copy of Brideshead Revisited I...

Love, sex and psychedelics in 70s San Francisco

Pride. Sex. Psychedelics. The words spring to mind quickly when thinking of San Francisco in the seventies. Between the tail end of an active...

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