My publisher, falsely so called…
I loved this drawn out account of Thoreau's dealings with a publisher wanting to clear out his cellar of Thoreau's...
In praise of idiosyncratic spelling
Those were the days, when you spelled, or spelt, or spellt, a word as you saw fit. Then the spelling...
The richest of all soils
The use of 'rich soil' to represent fertile ground for writing isn't surprising but this reference to 'decayed literature' is. ...
A visit to the Brontes
When I read the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth I had a yearning to visit the Wordsworth homes in the Lake...
A man with no plan
We went to a charity bazarre the other morning, and came staggering out with a sack load of books. Before...
Portrait of a writer
Iris Origo (1902-88) was an English writer who grew up in Italy and married an Italian. Together they bought and...
I wonder what you’ll do about money
A kindly concern on the part of T.E. Lawrence based on his appreciative reading of Williamson's Tarka the Otter before it...
Of boats and books
Another example of Steinbeck's search for a perfect writing spot, in different houses, places, times of his life, as described...
The loss of a journal
How many notebooks, journals or letters have been swept away by circumstance, carrying the minutiae of memory with them? Leigh...
Key Performance Indicators … with a twist
'Here and there in the leafy glade of her letters a ripe berry of information gleams.'
When was the last...
China through Chinese literature
Glad to highlight a new audiobook company dedicated to bringing modern Chinese fiction to a wider audience through new and...
Poetry as a boat
Another maritime metaphor in Heaney's introduction to a poem set in a sea-world. The ‘big quay’ of language and literature can...
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