October 7, 2021 Five fascinating facts about fictional asylums By Anne Goodwin In my professional life as a clinical psychologist, I visited around a dozen of the hundred or so long-stay psychiatric hospitals…
July 13, 2021 A Vertical Art – Oxford Lectures by Simon Armitage Reviewed by Anna Hollingsworth According to a recent Ipsos MORI poll, 90 per cent of people said that they’d read a novel in the…
July 9, 2021 Nomadland: From Book to Screen By Diana Cheng It first started with journalist Jessica Bruder camping in a tent then later in a van for three winters in the…
July 9, 2021 Dancing on Ropes: Translators and the Balance of History by Anna Aslanyan Review by Karen Langley As bookish people, when we think about translation we’re probably thinking about it in literary terms. There’s a rich seam…
June 16, 2021 Five Fascinating Facts About… Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Compiled by Annabel The Royal Society of Literature is celebrating ‘Dalloway Day‘ today – a Wednesday in the middle of June – when Virginia…
May 4, 2021 The Craft of Poetry by Lucy Newlyn Reviewed by Rob Spence Lucy Newlyn is a intriguing literary figure. She had a career as an Oxford don, publishing well-regarded studies of Romantic…
December 17, 2020 Spotlight on Publishers: Renard Press Questions by Karen Langley 2020 has in many ways been the year of independent publishers; print books have been fighting back against the march…
November 2, 2020 Bookshop.Org is OPEN in the UK Please excuse the plug post, but now we’re going back into lockdown it is more important than ever to support our indie bookshops online….
May 12, 2020 On the origins of ‘Pomeranski’, by Gerald Jacobs Today we are delighted to be taking part in a short blog tour for the novel ‘Pomeranski’ by Gerald Jacobs, just published by Quartet…
April 30, 2020 Puzzles, constraints and cryptograms: An Oulipo beginner’s primer By Karen Langley Although you may never have heard the name of the literary group Oulipo, there’s a good chance you might actually have…
November 14, 2019 Interview with Jane Badger about Pony Books Interview by Liz Dexter Jane Badger started off as a dealer in horse and pony books, becoming known for her extremely extensive website on…
July 9, 2019 Red Circle Authors: An unusual and innovative venture By Karen Langley Japanese literature has a long and rich heritage stretching from early works like The Pillow Book (990s) and The Tale of…
June 13, 2019 Q&A for Nicola Upson on Stanley & Elsie Interview by Harriet Harriet: Thanks for agreeing to do this, Nicola. I have recently finished reading and reviewing Stanley and Elsie and enjoyed it…
May 14, 2019 Five Fascinating Facts About… Daphne du Maurier Compiled by Annabel Ali at her blog, Heavenali, is hosting Daphne du Maurier reading week from May 13-19, so we’re joining in. One: Jamaica Inn, the…
April 4, 2019 A Spotlight on the Wellcome Book Prize By Rebecca Foster Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Wellcome Book Prize is an annual award sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, a global…
October 30, 2018 Spotlight on Publishers: Handheld Press Harriet talks to Kate Macdonald Harriet: Thanks for agreeing to do this for us Kate. Can you tell us a bit about the genesis…
September 25, 2018 Banned Books Week – The Russians By Karen Langley “The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him.” (Anais Nin) The banning of books is an…
September 4, 2018 Spotlight on Publishers: Myriad Editions Annabel asked Myriad Editions’ Publishing Director Candida Lacey some questions… Annabel: Your company website has an intriguing strapline, ‘Publishers of fiction, graphic books and atlases’….
July 9, 2018 The Golden Booker Celebration Who will win in 2018? Do share your longlist predictions… Report by Annabel When I booked my ticket for this event a couple of…
July 7, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: ‘The ones that got away’ It’s not always the case (or often?) that judges and readers are all in agreement on longlists, let alone the shortlists or eventual winners…
July 6, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 2009-2017 And finally, this fifth decade brings us up to date with previous winners of the Man Booker Prize. In 2010, the organisation decided to…
July 5, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1999-2008 The prize’s fourth decade marked the first time, in 2001, that the longlist was revealed to the world at large. It decade also marked…
July 4, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1989-1998 During the prize’s third decade, for the second time in its history, two books tied for top spot in 1992. Then, in 1993, the…
July 3, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1979-1988 The second decade of the prize, apart from producing the “Booker of Bookers” in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, was enlivened by some tight judging decisions….
July 2, 2018 The Man Booker Prize at 50: 1969-1978 When the Booker Prize was inaugurated, prizes for literature were rather looked down upon, they just didn’t make much impact. Tom Maschler looked at…
