Latest posts
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My Brilliant Career on Screen: From the 1979 Classic to Netflix
Judy Davis in 1979, Philippa Northeast in 2026 — each age remakes Sybylla in its own image. On the adaptations of My Brilliant Career, and why the book outlasts them all.
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‘The Dead’: The Greatest Short Story in English
Don’t start with Ulysses. Start with ‘The Dead’ — a Christmas party that becomes, on its last page, one of the summits of English prose. On the finest short story in the language.
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Heart of Darkness and the Achebe Question
No honest reading of Conrad ignores Achebe’s charge that he was ‘a bloody racist.’ On the great attack on Heart of Darkness — and why the book survives it.
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The Portrait as Soul: Reading Dorian Gray Again
A man whose portrait ages while his face stays perfect — the soul made visible. On Dorian Gray, the deferred bill, and the gap between the face and the self.
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Sybylla Melvyn: The Heroine Who Said No
In 1901 she turned down the rich, kind, handsome suitor — to keep herself. On Sybylla Melvyn, the heroine who chose a career over a proposal, and scandalised readers who wanted a wedding.
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Alice and the Logic of Nonsense
Written by an Oxford logician, its nonsense is the most rigorous in English. On Alice, and the machinery of reason turning without its cargo.
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Javert: The Tragedy of the Good Man Who Is Wrong
The character who haunts Les Misérables is not the saint but his pursuer — and Javert is no villain. On the good man destroyed by his own goodness.
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How to Actually Read War and Peace
The book everyone owns and no one finishes. It isn’t hard — it’s long, and the length is the point. A practical guide to actually reading War and Peace.
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The Book She Suppressed for Forty Years
It made her famous — and she couldn’t bear it. On why Miles Franklin banned her own masterpiece for forty years, and the peculiar agony of the autobiographical first novel.
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Levin’s Field: The Other Half of Anna Karenina
Anna’s tragedy is the one we remember, but Tolstoy hid the meaning in the other story. On Levin, the field, and the half of Anna Karenina most readers skip.