October Round Up

 

 My review of two books about A A Milne, E H Shepard and Winnie the Pooh, came out in Literary Review. 

I wrote an article for The Spectator about GQ's weird instructions for gentlemen. 

Philip Pullman's final novel about Lyra Belacqua, The Rose Field, was published, and my review appeared in The Telegraph.  

And I also wrote a light-hearted piece about the news that a family is looking for a tutor for £180,000 per annum for their one year old, also for The Telegraph.  

Over on Substack, I posted a video of my Ondine practice,  and I also wrote about aversion to technology; children's books and AI; and why we need English literature degrees. 

September Round Up

 

It's been a busy September, as autumn appears and a chill enters the air. 

I had a piece in the Spectator Schools supplement, here, on my boarding school memories, and another piece, about going to Lancing and Dorset House, which came out in the Lancing College magazine, Quad.

My Substack has been trundling along, with pieces on Ivy Compton-Burnett, Ovid's Tristia, the economics of writing books, John Lowin (an actor and contemporary of William Shakespeare), and the children's author Susan Price, whom I have recently discovered, having reviewed a reissue of her wonderful The Ghost Drum.

 

Summer Posts

 It's been a busy August, what with the "holidays", and trying to work alongside them... here are a few posts and articles that I've managed to produce over the past few weeks. 

Notes on Flatmates for the Spectator, about the new Pope's living arrangements.  

A piece about Letters of Introduction, also for The Spectator.  

And continuing my series about Shakespeare in Context, a piece about the Burbages for my Substack. 

 

Declining vocabulary in children's books

 I've written a piece for The Spectator about the declining quality of vocabulary in children's books. There wasn't space, unfortunately, to talk about the excellent writers who do stretch children these days, like Frances Hardinge, Marcus Sedgwick, Sally Gardner, F E Higgins et alia. 

The real story behind Barry Lyndon

Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon is a film I enjoy greatly: I also greatly enjoyed writing about it, and the real story behind it, for The Specator.  

 

Ferdinand Mount, and a short story for subscribers

 I reviewed Ferdinand Mount's latest novel, The Pentecost Papers, for the TLS.  Many years ago, I interviewed him for the Telegraph, and some time before that, I reviewed his novel, The Condor's Head.

 And over on Substack, I've released the first part of a short story for subscribers.  "Tor" is about a young boy who is left behind in a tower by himself during a long war. 

Part Two: read it here. 

 

 

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

 I wrote about Iris Murdoch's first novel, Under the Net, for The Times.