The Oxford Movement

I have promised to blog this year about Charlotte M Yonge. This is not that blog. But knowledgeable people sometimes call her the “novelist of the Oxford Movement.” Novelist of the what? The definitive 1930 history book “1066 and all that” by Sellars and Yeatman is comparatively...

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How do you read?

Round about May and November each year, I notice that the pile of “To be read” books by my bed is beginning to shrink. Not for long, however. The birthday comes; Christmas comes – the tower leaps up again. Occasionally there’s some rearranging, when books that...

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A booksy gathering in Hull

Last month I went to Hull for the weekend. I enjoyed an interesting guided tour round Hull city centre – obviously this is a loved city with a spirit of independence and creativity - but the reason for my visit was to attend the AGM of...

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Over- and under-rated

Each week the Guardian Review asks an author a similar set of questions, collectively called “The Books That Made Me.” Some of the authors I’ve even heard of. Two of the categories are: The book I think is most overrated, and The book I think is...

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Rather miscellaneous

So - I was planning to give you a lengthy rant in the form of an anecdote. Yesterday was the Day. The day when some person or algorithm decided it was my turn to be told that my National Insurance number was about to be frozen...

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Answers and miscellaneous

I might have posted this week on how pleasant (albeit chilly) it is to eat breakfast at newly-reopened cafés along Beeston High St, but this blog has spent a year trying to keep off the subject of coronavirus, so I won’t. Instead, here is a...

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Quiz for the holidays

It's Good Friday, and perhaps I should give you something spiritual - but you have many other sources for that. So - I love literary quizzes. They come in many topics, but I haven’t seen this one done before. We all know that Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy...

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