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Chekhov’s Three Sisters in January 2008
January seems like a long way off but William Rossiter has been in touch to remind me about his one…
Featured Poem: William Blake, ‘I saw a chapel all of gold’
By Jonathan Roberts This poem is quintessential Blake. It comes from one of his notebooks known as 'The Rossetti Manuscript'…
Cranford: Episode 2 Review
Clare Williams brings us up to date in the second of her reviews of the BBC's drama series Cranford. Episode…
A Note on Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh, who died forty years ago today is one of the best-loved of all Irish writers and was effectively…
Why are our children not reading?
British children are not reading as much as they used to and in particular they are not reading for pleasure.…
Biographer Stephen Gill: Wordsworth’s Prelude
The Reader’s outreach project, Get Into Reading, was kick-started by Melvyn Bragg’s Radio programme In Our Time. I was driving…
Featured Poem: Sonnet to William Wilberforce, Esq.
On November 26, 1731 the English poet and hymnodist William Cowper was born. Cowper trained as a lawyer but became…
Cranford: Sunday, 9PM, BBC1
Somehow this time of year always feels right for a good dramatic adaptation of a Victorian novel, just as it…
Thoughts on the Kindle
Being in the UK I haven't yet managed to get my hands on one of Amazon's new Kindle ebook devices.…
Twitterlit: First Lines of Books
Among writers of popular fiction it is widely believed that if book shop browsers are not hooked by the end…
BBC TV: Cranford
Just a heads up to remind all our readers that the first episode in the BBC's much anticipated five part…
The Death of the Book
On Monday the online retailer Amazon is tipped to release its electronic reading device known as the Kindle. This is…
