Literature

In lieu of my usual Secret Library column this Friday, an announcement – not a particularly momentous one – and a poem. Yesterday, I made the decision to leave Twitter for good. This is nothing to do with my experience of running the @InterestingLit account (which has, 99.9% of the time, been nothing but positive,

July 16, 2021, 1:06pm The American Booksellers Association has made their Twitter account private after promoting a scientifically inaccurate anti-trans book, apologizing, and then deleting the apology. The controversy started when the ABA, as part of their July “white box” promotional mailing, sent 750 bookstores a copy of freelance journalist Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage: The

Here’s a question for you: originally, how many ‘plagues of Egypt’ were there? If you answered ‘ten’, you need to read on. The so-called ‘ten plagues of Egypt’, described in the Book of Exodus, have been the subject of considerable commentary and analysis, but in this post we’re going to try to offer an introduction

July 16, 2021, 10:30am Late to the party yet again, I recently saw Shawshank Redemption for the very first time. For those of you who have been living under an adjacent rock, it’s a movie based on Stephen King’s novella, starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, who play Red and Andy, two men serving lengthy

‘Why I Write’ is an essay by George Orwell, published in 1946 after the publication of his novella Animal Farm and before he wrote his final novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The essay is an insightful piece of memoir about Orwell’s early years and how he developed as a writer, from harbouring ambitions to write self-consciously literary

July 15, 2021, 1:38pm Donald Trump, in response to the numerous exposés on his presidency hitting shelves this year, has taken to doing angry rebuttal interviews and praising books by his political allies. But I guess it runs in the family: as Internet sleuths discovered yesterday, Trump plagiarized HarperCollins publicity copy and passed it off

‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ These words are recognisable to many people who are unaware of the poem in which they originate. Published in The Examiner on 11 January 1818, ‘Ozymandias’ is perhaps Percy Bysshe Shelley’s most celebrated and best-known poem. And we find the famous line ‘Look on my works, ye

July 15, 2021, 12:29pm Talk about following virtue and knowledge: The Visual Agency has created DivineComedy.digital, a digital humanities tool that maps the influence of Dante Alighieri’s narrative world on art around the globe. DivineComedy.digital displays artworks that depict scenes in the Divine Comedy—illuminated manuscripts, engravings, canvases, frescoes, and drawings. Users can browse the collection

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most famous parables from the New Testament. But what is less well-known is that it concludes a trio of similar parables which can be found in chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke. What does the parable of the Prodigal Son symbolise? And what happened

July 14, 2021, 1:25pm On your marks, get set… BOOK! The Booker Prize revealed its 2022 judges today, among them a familiar face for fans of Great British Bake Off—no, not Paul Hollywood. It’s OG host Mel Giedroyc! Mel is joined by chair and translator Frank Wynne (tr. Animalia), author and academic Merve Emre (The

‘The Library of Babel’ is a 1941 short story by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story brings together a number of trademark Borgesian ideas, such as the infinite, and the paradoxical nature of the world. But what does ‘The Library of Babel’ mean? And what is the paradox at the heart of this

July 14, 2021, 10:30am In 2006, Roberto Bolaño, who died 18 years ago this week, published a list of “advice on the art of writing short stories” in World Literature Today. The mini essay was translated by David Draper Clark; the original Spanish version was published in Bolaño’s 2004 essay collection Entre Parèntesis. The advice

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) has been called everything from a modernist to an existentialist, a fantasy writer to a realist. His work almost stands alone as its own subgenre, and the adjective ‘Kafkaesque’ – whose meaning, like the meaning of Kafka’s work, is hard to pin down – has become well-known even to people who have

July 13, 2021, 2:19pm The Alaska Library Catalog allows Alaska’s libraries to borrow and lend materials to each other. Library patrons in Alaska have the Alaska Library Catalog to thank for their access to 3.2 million books, rather than just the contents of their local library. But this month, as part of a series of

‘Two roads diverged in a wood’; ‘I took the one less traveled by’. These two lines have become famous since they were written, and they are widely quoted. But their meaning is also widely misunderstood. What did Robert Frost mean when he wrote, ‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, / I took the

TODAY: In 1904, Pablo Neruda is born.   “A part of me still believes it isn’t possible to be a brown writer and also be funny and also be taken seriously. But I’ve taken the leap and put my name on this book.” Tahmima Anam on the serious business of being funny. | Lit Hub

‘If We Shadows Have Offended’ is the opening line of Puck’s closing speech from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In summary, the speech sees Puck (also known as Robin Goodfellow) seeking forgiveness from the audience if the fairies (including Puck himself) have ‘offended’ any of the audience with their antics. Before we take a closer

July 12, 2021, 12:55pm Since its publication, Queenie, the 2019 debut novel from Vintage senior marketing executive Candice Carty-Williams, has been repeatedly compared to Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. Kirkus’s starred review called it “A black Bridget Jones, perfectly of the moment.” Entertainment Weekly echoed the praise and noted the similarities between Queenie Jenkins and