Friday 22nd 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,...
Books Ngoc Diep -

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...
Books Nancy Gittus -

Running on treadmills: Milan Kundera’s meditations on Slowness

Sometimes it takes a new word to express an old feeling. Until the age...
Books Lloyd Doré-Green -

What the book you’re reading says about you

In an institution as prestigious as Oxford, every book you pull out in public...
Books Aayah Aslam -
Latest

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.

Books you can’t sink your teeth into: A brief look into unsolvable manuscripts

If there’s one thing that most people appreciate, it’s a good mystery with a clever solution. It is no accident that Agatha Christie is...

On Leadership by Tony Blair, Precipice by Robert Harris, and Oxford crime – Books of the Month

On Leadership by Tony Blair; Precipice by Robert Harris; Lessons in Crime: Academic Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards

North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order review – “An excellent account”

Dr Edward Howell, whose columns in the Spectator and the Telegraph are among the few intelligent and readable things left in those outlets, has...

A Revolution Betrayed by Peter Hitchens review – In Defence of Grammar Schools

Review – A Revolution Betrayed: How Egalitarians Wrecked the British Education System by Peter Hitchens. ISBN: 9781399400077  Most people accept that the British education system...

Veranilda by George Gissing review – The best historical novel never written

George Gissing remains the most underrated novelist in the English language. He wrote twenty-three novels, although the average bookshop today only contains four of...

Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart review – “The prime minister we never had”

This is a marvellous book, a memoir of Rory Stewart’s nine years in Parliament, and its greatest flaw is that it is not long...

The Conservative Effect, 2010-2024 review: “Comprehensive and damning”

If you only read one book on British politics this year, make it this one. 

P.G. Wodehouse’s Ukridge at 100

It is unfortunate that P.G. Wodehouse's reputation in Oxford takes such a blow from his being a popular favourite among OUCA members. Still, he...

Top 10 Summer Reads

Summer, Edith Wharton, 1917 I’m going to start with an obvious pick: Summer by Edith Wharton. I read this for the first time recently, in...

Lost in translation?

As someone who is half Japanese, I’ve become accustomed to reading literature in different languages. Some books I’ve enjoyed so much that I’ve read...
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