Thursday 11th September 2025

Culture

Animal History: Reviewed

If an older adult has ever raised their eyebrow at your vegetarianism, then I might just have the book for you. They might be interested in knowing that even...

Hertford Archaeology Open Day: Medieval Oxford laid bare

You may have spent the last year wondering what has been going on amongst...

The Blue Trail: review

★★★★☆ The Blue Trail (O Último Azul), this year’s winner of the Berlin International Film...

Review: Sketches from a Curious Mind

In 1962, Edward Anthony wrote: “Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a...

“I don’t want realism, I want magic”: NT Live’s A Streetcar Named Desire

“Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons when an hour isn’t just an hour—but a whole little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and...

Being True to the Book

Adapting books for the stage or screen seems to be completely irresistible. We are compelled to take words on a page and transform them...

Live Album Review: Vulfpeck at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, NY, late 2019. A packed house. We see a stage, empty save for Woody Goss...

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...

‘Don’t Walk Away in Silence’: Ian Curtis Remembered

Monday 18th May marked forty years since Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, took his own life by hanging himself in his...

The New Music Celebrity

The glossy pages of the likes of NME and Rolling Stone were pored over by music aficionados in the past, hoping for a snippet of the intent of...

Love and doubt: ‘Looking back’ at Orpheus and Eurydice retellings

Just as Helen possessed the face that launched a thousand ships, Orpheus, the legendary musician and poet, charmed a thousand hearts with his music....

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...

Interned

My books lay open all these three short years,Had time at hand to sit and space to stretch,With pavement walks, contented times quite soft,In...

Why food festivals matter

Every year on Shrove Tuesday, I put aside the time to make my family pancakes - despite the fact that my parents would much prefer...

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...

Comfort Films: How to Train Your Dragon

I was not expecting to be on a plane, flying back to Australia. Libraries closed, online teaching, “unprecedented times” (etc. etc. etc.) — I...

“Ladies, ladies, ladies, ladies” – the women at the forefront of lockdown releases

My initial self-isolation playlist contained what I thought I would want to listen to during this indoor period - wistful folk-rock and simmering ambient, the types...

Indie cinema’s uncertain future

If nothing else, the chaos provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic has been indiscriminate. Very few industries have been spared by its impact, whether that...

Are we blind to the need for blind casting?

Perhaps the biggest debate surrounding ‘gender-blind and colour-blind’ casting (with which actors are cast regardless of the traditional race/gender of their role) is the...

“It’s Not a Phase, Mom!” – In Defence of Teenage Clichés

“I’m not like other girls,” comes the mocking cry from my little sister across the kitchen table – a phrase I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually...

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....

Cleverly Captured Vulnerability in ‘Normal People’

When I first read Normal People, it was the unwavering emotional rigour of the prose that got to me. Rooney has this matter-of-fact way...

‘Young Rembrandt’: The Making of a Master

The name ‘Rembrandt’ is one entrenched in tradition, status, and artistic study. A true Old Master at the heart of the Dutch Golden Age,...

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