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Reader event: The Penny Readings
On the evening of Sunday 9th December, at St George's Hall in Liverpool, The Reader is hosting its fourth annual Penny Readings…
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…
Vernon Scannell 1922-2007
The poet Vernon Scannell died last weekend aged 85. He was a prolific writer: eight novels, autobiographical memoirs, works of…
Featured Anthology: Staying Alive – Brendan Kennelly
As the end of the week arrives and the last poem from our featured anthology Staying Alive is posted, it…
Featured Anthology: Staying Alive – Miroslav Holub
The fourth poet to feature from Staying Alive is Miroslav Holub, who was one of the Czech Republic's most important poets and also a leading scientist…
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.…
Featured Anthology: Staying Alive – David Constantine
As well as being a regular contributor to The Reader, David Constantine is a freelance writer, poet and translator. Possessing…
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…
Featured Anthology: Staying Alive – Anne Stevenson
Anne Stevenson, a critic of Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop and a poet herself, was born in Cambridge in 1933…
Featured Anthology: Staying Alive – Denise Levertov
The first poem to feature from our second featured anthology, Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times, is 'Living' by…
