Books

Doctor Zhivago: The banned book the CIA smuggled across the Iron Curtain

“May it make its way around the world. You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.” These were the words of Boris Pasternak as he entrusted Italian...

Books Kavya Kapadia -

Sally Rooney, a Flaubert for today?

Like millions of other people in recent years, I have fallen victim to the...

Books Richard Kuehl -

Twenty-seven years on from The Satanic Verses: Can works of fiction be political?

On the 16th May, the man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie following a literary...

Books Ivett Berenyi -

The afterlife of stories: The art and ambiguity of literary retellings

Love, betrayal, justice, jealousy: these are timeless themes, woven into the human experience for...

Books Saskia Maini -

Latest

Friday Favourite: The Uninhabitable Earth

The book currently on top of my ever-growing ‘To Read’ pile is David Wallace-Well’s 2019 book The Uninhabitable Earth. Based on his 2017 essay of the...

Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes offers an origin story for everyone’s favourite evil-but-unequivocally-stylish dictator, President Snow. For the uninitiated, his achievements in the...

Thoughts on the gifting of a book

In search of a distraction in the gloom of mid-April, I sorted through my bookshelves, where half-read prelims texts obscured teen fiction and discarded...

Review: The Mirror and the Light

The final instalment of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy finds her writing with more lyricism and force than ever before, and cements her prestige as...

Students review their favourite audiobooks

'Good Omens' by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman, read by Martin JarvisI love the idea of audiobooks but often struggle to find one I...

The societal consequences of the prosthetic womb in Helen Sedgwick’s ‘The Growing Season’

Imagining a world where reproductive technology has evolved to popularise prosthetic wombs, Helen Sedgwick’s ‘The Growing Season’ toes the line between utopia and dystopia...

Classic Letdowns: Ulysses by James Joyce

There are some rites of passage simply not worth the walk - just ask David Cameron. From pig’s heads to pyramids of naked would-be...

Friday Favourite: Revolutionary Road

If I were to tell you that this novel is great because it’s ‘mesmerising’ and ‘powerful’ and ‘you simply can’t put it down’, you...

All Greek to Me: Why we can’t get enough of modern takes on ancient literature

Greek and Latin works have inspired literature throughout the ages - authors were, and still are, constantly riffing off one another, with even Virgil,...

Debate: Is banning books ever justified?

The Case For Edward McLaren The case for banning certain works of fiction is often understated. While we like to pretend immoral books that focus...

And the winner is…? International Booker Prize postponed as book sales slump

"Restlessness gives wings to the imagination".Maurice Gilliams Dutch author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld chose this epigraph to preface their debut novel, 'The Discomfort of Evening’, long...

Friday Favourite: The works of Svetlana Alexievich

Svetlana Alexievich’s works are not an easy read. On the face of it, they are oral histories of the Second World War, the Soviet...

Sense and Sexibility Part 2: A defense of Austen’s leading ladies

In light of a recent Cherwell article, I decided it was time to give Austen’s female leads the credit they deserve. I love Darcy...

The Masque of the Red Death: Reading our way out of a crisis

Edgar Allan Poe wrote his short story, the Masque of the Red Death, after his wife had been diagnosed with the then-incurable disease, tuberculosis....

Lost in Translation

In an age of globalised literature and artificial intelligence translation tools, to examine the function of literary translators is to question the substance of...

Friday Favourite: Crush

When I was a kid, I would re-read the books I found exciting, and which had characters I 'got on with' – a lot...

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...

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Books

Doctor Zhivago: The banned book the CIA smuggled across the Iron Curtain

Sally Rooney, a Flaubert for today?

Twenty-seven years on from The Satanic Verses: Can works of fiction be political?

The afterlife of stories: The art and ambiguity of literary retellings

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