Friday, March 14, 2025

Books

Lessons in Censorship: A Cautionary Tale against Bodleian Blacklists 

For some authors, the Bodleian Libraries have not always a safe haven for their work. Although marginalised texts are no longer demarcated with the phi symbol on their spines, with many having re-entered the undergraduate canon, Sophie Price discusses the valuable lessons we can learn from the Bodleian blacklist which remain pertinent today.

Should ‘Orbital’ have won The Booker Prize? 

Laurence Cooke reviews Samantha Harvey's 'Orbital', the winner of the 2024 Booker Prize.

The Secret History Characters as Oxford Tropes

Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History is set in an exclusive college in Vermont but can be read as a satire of Oxford and its students. It invites us to question how little differentiates us from the elitist American universities.

Review: The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

There are some writers whose line of literary descent is so clear as to...

In this fractured world, does empathy really hold us all together?

Against Empathy is a compelling and relevant reevaluation of compassion

There’s more to prehistory than cave drawings and diplodocuses

Katie Sayer revisits Yuval Noah Harari's tale of a revolutionary world

A flawed man with a revolutionary aim

Ethan Croft explores Philippe Girard's admirable Toussaint Louverture: a revolutionary life

The science books that every non-scientist should read

Rosalie Wells lists the best science and medicine books to read this summer

“A woman sitting alone, doing nothing”

Tilly Nevin reviews Mary Ruefle’s stunning and startling new collection 'My Private Property'

A rhetorical revolution on Trump?

Ethan Croft explores the academic discussion of Donald Trump's election and administration

Interview: A.C. Grayling

John Maier in conversation with A.C. Grayling about New Atheism, analytic philosophy, and the EU

Tiny words: on the art of small talk

Ellie Duncan ruminates on the place of everyday interaction in literary writing

‘Deeper than the Abyss’: Resisting the Holocaust

Sam Sussman reviews Peter Hayes' new book, 'Why? Explaining the Holocaust'

Representing sex in young adult fiction

Cherwell Books focuses on the importance of consent and honesty

Imagination and immediacy in travel writing

Ellie Duncan interviews Neil McQuillian, Senior Editor at Rough Guides

Between the World and Ta-Nehisi Coates

Altair Brandon-Salmon on an autobiographical look at American racism

Reinvention: a love affair with language

Tilly Nevin reviews approaches to the interplay of language and creativity

Writing the uncanny and the lyrical

Tilly Nevin reviews Gillian Cross and Daisy Johnson in conversation

Society divided: Dickens and revolution

Ethan Croft considers the politics of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

The life and death of the millennial author

Daniel Curtis considers the implications of social media for literary legacies

Dostoyevsky and the crime of orthodoxy

Daniel Villar reflects on how Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s religious beliefs influenced his literature as the anniversary of his death approaches on 9 February

Review: The Leopard

Altair Brandon-Salmon revisits the classic Italian 20th century novel

Harry Potter and the Procrastinators’ Tome

Izzy Smith is reminded of the comforting power of the books of our childhood

Author of the week: Halldór Laxness

Ellie Duncan takes a look at one of Iceland's greatest writers

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