The long history of the tablet
I like when ancient things reappear in modern contexts. At an airport, you can see dozens of people tapping away...
A space filled to repletion
I like visual and typographical playfulness, and here in Orlando the point about economy in language is underlined not with...
Marketing opportunity missed?
Standing on a railway platform I noticed an advert plastered on the drinks dispenser, for Evian mineral water. Clearly, the...
Of berries and wine
Having a love of ink, the variety of its hues and the names people give them, and the chunky inventive...
Kingly encouragement
Surely one of the pithiest, funniest and most ebulliently floor-wiping book criticisms in the history of scribbling and patronage. All...
Key Penmanship Indicators (KPIs) – V
A writer occasionally knows their prose is straight, keen and true; often knows it isn't quite, but without being sure...
The sonnet never written
This is one of the longest and most entertaining chapters in Machado de Assis' novel Don Casmurro, a fictional memoir...
The magic of great stories
Coming from a superb storyteller, this comment on the secret of the Great Stories is refreshing and insightful. It has long...
A voice answering a voice?
More than just the writing of poetry, isn't writing in general often 'a voice answering a voice'?
This touching quotation...
Of abundant overflow
What causes creativity to spring forth? I like Seamus Heaney's idea that it is not so much reactive as a...
How to strangle an author
The life and fate of Grossman's manuscript hung in the balance after being arrested by the authorities. He never knew...
Missing homework
Here Steinbeck suffers a bout of exam nerves before being bombarded with highly intellectual questions from his counterparts in the...
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