Books

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.
Books Christina Scote -

Review: The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

There are some writers whose line of literary descent is so clear as to...
Books Hassan Akram -

BookTok: The Last Page of the Publishing Industry?

The #booktok stands that have become fixtures of bookshops across the country inspire intense...
Books Maya Heuer-Evans -

Defiance: Racial Injustice, Police Brutality, A Sister’s Fight for the Truth by Janet Alder

At Oxford’s Wesley Memorial Church, Janet Alder offered a harrowing and unflinching account of resilience in the face of systemic injustice.
Books Asma Issa -
Latest

More profit-interest than philanthropy in new Twilight prequel ‘Midnight Sun’

Confession time: I was a Twilight fan. It’s not as damning as the image that probably comes to mind – I honestly don’t remember...

Review: Normal People – from book to screen

When it was announced last year that Sally Rooney’s second novel, Normal People, would be adapted into a BBC and Hulu television series, the excitement...

Friday Favourite: Amantes de cartón

Amid the national and global chaos, Hugo Ortega’s new book of poetry Amantes de cartón (Cardboard Lovers) is a quiet yet powerful exploration of...

Review: Lost Horizon

Of all the emotions that may be stirred in one during the current Coronavirus lockdown, tranquility is perhaps not the most obvious choice. Yet...

On the misuse of Orwell

The habit of thoughtlessly quoting or referencing George Orwell in political debate has become, like so many bad habits, so common that it is...

Sense and Sexibility: A definitive ranking of Austen’s leading men

Welcome to my definitive ranking of Austen’s romantic heroes and, as an auxiliary ranking that I was not actually asked to add, my favourite...

Review: The Artist’s Way

This is both a book review and a book recommendation. Julia Cameron’s book - The Artist’s Way - is the perfect book to pick...

A country without libraries: what we are missing

You might think that working in a library would be a nice, peaceful job. That’s what I thought too. After spending two years working...

Friday Favourite: The Neapolitan Quartet

In a rare interview with LA Times in 2018, Elena Ferrante, universally-celebrated, elusive (the name is a pseudonym) author of the Neapolitan novels, was...

Review: Lovecraft Country

I bought Lovecraft Country back in term time, and, as with far too many books, didn’t get around to reading it until much later....

‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’: Big Read

‘The guests are met, the feast is set’ and the Ancient Mariner Big Read has begun. On 18th April, the project released its first instalment:...

Reading ‘Neurotribes’ in Autism Acceptance Month

This Autism Awareness Month, I decided to become more aware of the history of the condition I’ve lived with my entire life but was only diagnosed...

Friday Favourite: A Month in the Country

Sometimes you reread a book because it is beautiful; sometimes you do it because a mysterious benefactor on your flight gave you a concerning...

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: A study of depression during confinement

TW: discussion of mental illness, suicide “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.” As the...

Friday Favourite: The Waves

The Waves by Virginia Woolf is a book that I unapologetically love. As an English student with a long reading list, I don’t tend...

Oxford love can hurt like this

Okay, I thought, when I found myself two weeks into lockdown: NOW is the time to finally read that copy of Brideshead Revisited I...

Love, sex and psychedelics in 70s San Francisco

Pride. Sex. Psychedelics. The words spring to mind quickly when thinking of San Francisco in the seventies. Between the tail end of an active...

Friday Favourite: Jane Eyre

In Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre, the protagonist spends her teenage years at Lowood School – an institution with a cast of cruel...

Bringing together Oxford’s zines

In light of the current coronavirus situation, we at Cherwell are interested in bringing together student zines to publicise Oxford's writing community. Many students in...

Friday Favourite: The Things They Carried

In the perverse manner of a bored and immature conscript in peacetime, I spent my weekends off in 2015 and 2016 consuming as much...
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