Literature

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Favourite books of 2012

Clare Cannon and Harley J. Sims | 18 December 2012 |

tags: book reviews, books, literature, reading

Looking for a good read over the Christmas holidays? A late present? Look no further.

75 years of The Hobbit

Harley J. Sims | 07 December 2012 |

tags: fantasy, J.R.R. Tolkien, literature

J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginative adventure has become the gold standard of children’s literature.

The Casual Vacancy

Harley J. Sims | 22 October 2012 |

tags: book reviews, Harry Potter, literature

J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults is a sprawling, dark, misanthropic tale about the worst kind of Muggles.

Nobel laureate criticises one-child policy

Michael Cook | 15 October 2012 |

tags: book reviews, literature, Nobel Prize, one-child policy

Will the national pride in China's first national to win the Nobel Prize for Literature lead to a reform of the one-child policy?

Donner and Blitzen! Where’s my pipe?

Harley J. Sims | 08 October 2012 |

tags: censorship, literature, smoking

A publisher bowdlerises familiar verses to produce a non-smoking Santa for the edification of children.

Poetry bestsellers and other oxymorons

Bronwyn Lea | 11 July 2012 |

tags: Islam, literature, poetry

The best-selling poet in America wrote in Persian and has been dead for 700 years.

Without the marriage plot, what’s left of the novel?

Mark Bauerlein | 15 May 2012 |

tags: literature, marriage, post-modernism

When romance and marriage are entirely an individual thing the drama of the characters narrows accordingly.

Arguably

Francis Phillips | 05 December 2011 |

tags: literature, religion

In his collected essays, the controversial Christopher Hitchens shows that he is incapable of platitudes or jargon.

Redeeming the dreary

Michael Kirke | 25 October 2011 |

tags: Christianity, literature, ordinary life

When will artists discover the drama and richness of ordinary life?

Twilight on the moors

Carolyn Moynihan | 27 September 2011 |

tags: feminism, literature, romantic fiction

Why does generation after generation return to a romantic novel written by the daughter of a Victorian clergyman?

Home run for Hispanic humanist

Miguel Valerio | 05 November 2010 |

tags: Latin America, literature, Nobel Prize

Mario Vargas Llosa richly deserves his Nobel Prize for Literature.

A magical classic turns 50

John Robson | 09 June 2010 |

tags: literature, racism, to kill a mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is 50 years old, John Robson says it has only improved with age.

Contested Will

Francis Phillips | 25 May 2010 |

tags: literature, Shakespeare

Why have so many intelligent people been so dotty about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays? 

A link to our Muslim heritage

Michael Cook | 12 May 2009 |

tags: Islam, literature, poetry

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the most famous Islamic poem in English.

Nobel Lecture: On those who do not win prizes

Wangari Maathai , Margaret Ogola , Doris Lessing and Carolyn Moynihan | 20 December 2007 |

tags: internet, literature, Nobel Prize

Reading books used to be part of general education, says Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing. Perhaps we need to learn that again -- from Africa.