Department of Exceptions
‘All good publishers have a department of exceptions.’
Perhaps any institution worth its salt should have a department of exceptions:...
Book as mirror II
One of the most reassuring and surprising insights I found in reading Harold Bloom's literary criticism, was the realization that...
Marcel and me – memories of childhood
I grew up with Marcel. That is the French author Pagnol (1895-1974) was a part of our domestic library and...
Arthur Ransome – cover illustrations
If you've been following WritingRedux, you may have noticed a number of pawky playful gems from Arthur Ransome's children's books....
Publishers, monkeys, monkeys, publishers
I love the way Captain Flint sees his mission to find a monkey for the children as a refreshing change...
Rules and readers
Many of us have been in situations where vague ‘conventions’ are cited, the unwritten rules governing this or that realm....
Tales from Australia and Oceania
This book cover and related illustrations are from a wonderful old French series of tales and stories from around the...
On the culling of books
I have long put off writing this post because I have an aversion to it. A while back I bought...
A capacious book thief
Steinbeck and Robert Capa spent a month in the Soviet Union. It took some time for Steinbeck to cotton on...
The history of books
An idea so intrinsic to reading books, particularly those you love and remember, that I had never consciously thought of...
Fuel for the body or mind?
Book burning, or bibliocide, is usually something we associate with ideologues, political or religious, fearful of the free flow of...
Worse than cocaine
If you were traversing the Soviet Union it was better to be caught with a kilo of cocaine than a...
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