books Archives - Cherwell

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

Every morning on my way to college, I pass through the cobblestoned, crowded St Mary’s Passage, overhearing stories of Oxford’s most famous literary duo,...

TLDR: Literacy in the digital age

No one reads these days. If it’s longer than an Instagram caption, it’s not worth my time. I doubt most people will even make...

On Gravel and Quads: Woolf’s Oxbridge in ‘A Room of One’s Own’

Virginia Woolf’s extended essay A Room of One’s Own is probably the most important 20th century piece of writing concerning women’s place in literature...

To read or not to read?

It’s 5pm and I’m standing on a packed, unmoving train, somewhere between Swindon and Bristol Parkway, dodging questionable armpits and trying my best to...

Why all this fuss about ‘Wuthering Heights’?

Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice, Greta Gerwig’s Narnia, HBO’s Harry Potter. All these adaptations of well-loved literary classics are currently in...

How can we write animal history? – ‘Animal History’: Reviewed

If an older adult has ever raised their eyebrow at your vegetarianism, then I might just have the book for you. They might be...

Academia is hell, literally: R.F. Kuang’s ‘Katabasis’

R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis touches on a range of near-universal academic experiences: impostor syndrome; frantic, caffeine-fuelled study sessions; watching someone effortlessly ace every single test...

‘Pour summer in a glass’: retracing Dandelion Wine

“You did not hear them coming. You hardly heard them go. The grass bent down, sprang up again. They passed like cloud shadows downhill...

Running on treadmills: Milan Kundera’s meditations on Slowness

Sometimes it takes a new word to express an old feeling. Until the age of around fourteen I spent many of my evenings brokering...

What the book you’re reading says about you

In an institution as prestigious as Oxford, every book you pull out in public is transformed into a portable personality test, a hard launch...

Why romance books should be your post-exam read

With finals in full swing, and prelims just around the corner, Oxford’s libraries are full to the brim and SOLO is open at all...

Doctor Zhivago: The banned book the CIA smuggled across the Iron Curtain

“May it make its way around the world. You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.” These were the words of Boris...

Twenty-seven years on from The Satanic Verses: Can works of fiction be political?

On the 16th May, the man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie following a literary event in 2022 was sentenced to 25 years in prison....

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...

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