Category Archives: Fiction

Roundup: Late Stories, Stately Festivals and a Rare (but Misspelled) Burgundy

–This week’s TLS has a review of Inez Holden’s late stories recently published in a collection issued by the Anthony Powell Society. Here’s an excerpt from the review by Lindsay Duguid: …The stories share an elusive quality, with only the … Continue reading

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Roundup: From Addis to Epstein

—The Reporter, an Ethiopian English-language journal, has identified the wholesale modernization of the country’s capital Addis Ababa as a matter of cultural concern.  Here are the opening paragraphs: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s enigmatic capital, is undergoing a makeover that’s as controversial … Continue reading

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Mid-July Roundup

–Novelist, critic and literary biographer DJ Taylor in this month’s Literary Review writes about literary biographies. His own most recent efforts in this field are a revision and expansion of his biography of George Orwell originally published in 2003 and … Continue reading

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4th of July Roundup

–The website LitHub.com has a story about a proposal by the former royal couple Harry and Meghan to Netflix for what sounds like a prequel to Great Expectations. Should that fail to be commissioned, the LitHub reporter Janet Manley has … Continue reading

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Complete Works Featured in TLS

A review of the four latest volumes in the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh series is featured on the cover of this week’s TLS. This is written by literary critic Peter Parker and entitled “A Handful of Books: Evelyn Waugh’s … Continue reading

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Summer Solstice Roundup

–In a recent issue of The Sunday Times, Matthew Syed discussed the legacy of Boris Johnson. This excerpt appears near the beginning: We always knew Johnson was a skilled deceiver and dissimulator. In his book Chums, Simon Kuper tells of … Continue reading

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Roundup: a Painter, a Photographer and a Satirist

–This quote appears in a recent collection of essays entitled Antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Politics of Definition edited by Prof G D Cohen of Rice University: In June 1945, the British diplomat and man of letters Harold Nicolson admitted that … Continue reading

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Early June Roundup

–The New Statesman reports the confused results of the controversial Oxford Union appearance of Prof. Kathleen Stock, described as a “gender-critical feminist philosopher”. After the Union invited her to speak, a protest arose against her appearance as being unfair to … Continue reading

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Memorial Day/Spring Bank Holiday Roundup

—The Spectator has posted a memorial tribute to its recently deceased columnist Jeremy Clarke. This is by David Goodhart who writes that he gave Clarke his start as a journalist. Clarke’s longest and best known gig was the Low-Life column … Continue reading

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Martin Amis R. I. P. (1949-2023)

Novelist and critic Martin Amis has died at the age of 73. Dwight Garner, a book critic of the New York Times, opens that paper’s obituary with this: Martin Amis, whose caustic, erudite and bleakly comic novels redefined British fiction … Continue reading

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