December Round Up

 

 

It's been a relatively quiet month on the journalism front, partly because of Christmas. I wrote about newspapers for The Telegraph, and parties, Christmas and Shakespeare for The Spectator.

 

Brothers Grimm and pantomime

Hello, I've written a festive piece for The Telegraph about the Brothers Grimm, pantomime and fairy tales. Check it out here.

Literary Review: Children's Round Up

My round up of children's books is in this month's Literary Review, a magazine so packed with jam it's like a bonus-sized jar of Bonne Maman. And don't we all love Bonne Maman. Mmmmm. Hold on a sec. Right, now that I've had my afternoon fix of toast and jam, I'll tell you about the review - I'm doing ten (mostly) creepy books for Christmas.

They are Anne Fine's The Devil Walks, Mary Hooper's Velvet, Chris Priestley's Mr Creecher, Lauren Oliver's Liesel and Po, The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again by Frank Cottrell Boyce, A Greyhound of A Girl by Roddy Doyle, Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp by Philip Pullman, and School of Meanies by Daren King.

In this issue you will also find out what the Hawaiian word for sulphur is - "kukae pele", or Pele's excrement (Pele the goddess, that is), and be introduced to Leet, the gaming language in an article by David Profumo; there's also brilliant stuff from Kwasi Kwarteng, Robert Irwin, Adrian Tinniswood, Claire Harman, John Gray, D J Taylor and bags more.