Thursday 20th November 2025

Books

The lying life of authors: John le Carré and authorial double-lives

“I’m not a spy who writes novels, I am a writer who briefly worked in the secret world.” This was said by the famous author John le Carré, who...

The caring individual: John le Carré at the Weston

At the back of the Weston Library, in a small room off to one...

Why we’re obsessed with Greek myth retellings

In every bookshop today, from Blackwell’s to Waterstones, an unmistakable pattern emerges: Greek myth...

Plaques and Peripheries: The Search for Oxford’s Women Writers

Every morning on my way to college, I pass through the cobblestoned, crowded St...

Representing sex in young adult fiction

Cherwell Books focuses on the importance of consent and honesty

Imagination and immediacy in travel writing

Ellie Duncan interviews Neil McQuillian, Senior Editor at Rough Guides

Between the World and Ta-Nehisi Coates

Altair Brandon-Salmon on an autobiographical look at American racism

Reinvention: a love affair with language

Tilly Nevin reviews approaches to the interplay of language and creativity

Writing the uncanny and the lyrical

Tilly Nevin reviews Gillian Cross and Daisy Johnson in conversation

Society divided: Dickens and revolution

Ethan Croft considers the politics of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

The life and death of the millennial author

Daniel Curtis considers the implications of social media for literary legacies

Dostoyevsky and the crime of orthodoxy

Daniel Villar reflects on how Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s religious beliefs influenced his literature as the anniversary of his death approaches on 9 February

Review: The Leopard

Altair Brandon-Salmon revisits the classic Italian 20th century novel

Harry Potter and the Procrastinators’ Tome

Izzy Smith is reminded of the comforting power of the books of our childhood

Author of the week: Halldór Laxness

Ellie Duncan takes a look at one of Iceland's greatest writers

Review: ‘White Trash’ by Nancy Isenberg

Daniel Villar finds this survey of white working class America wanting

Author of the week: Paul Beatty

A look at the winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize

Writing winter from Shakespeare to Selvon

Ellie Duncan surveys the representation of winter in literature through the ages

The richness of the materiality of books

Altair Brandon-Salmon discusses the importance of books as aesthetic objects

Vacation blues: what to read when you’re missing Oxford

Laura Hackett offers a fictional fix of Oxford nostalgia to see you through the vac

Nineteen Eighty-Four in 2016

James Lamming explores the relevance of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' in the era of Trump

Five literary festive favourites

Izzy Smith picks out five of the best books to enjoy this Christmas

Were the Nazis on drugs?

The Nazi regime was permeated with drugs, from morphine to heroin, taken by almost everyone in the Reich, from soldiers to housewives. This shocking...

Katherine Mansfield: The implosion of femininity

Priya Khaira-Hanks explores the enduring appeal of Katherine Mansfield's short stories in a modern woman's world

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