Because when I see a list of 12 books to entertain, challenge and inspire if you’re confined at home due to Covid-19.
And no 2 on the list is Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain????!!!!
Life is too short even without a raging pandemic is all I'm saying.
Okay, I daresay that people do think that being in isolation is a great chance to get stuck in on ( Read more... )

I’ve just judged two literary prizes and reading for both numbed my brain with bleakness. Like the misconception that comedic acting is somehow easier than Ibsen, so has “happy” literature somehow become equated with lightweight.
I didn't particularly agree with JoJo Moyes' suggestions for 'something that’s not a romcom in book form. Are there any ( Read more... )

Women Photographers in the Historic England Archive: Discover the women photographers whose work enriches the collections of the Historic England Archive.
A one-way passage from India: Hackney Museum explores fate of colonial ayahs: Indian women were often employed to care for British children, but some were abandoned on reaching UK.
Interview with ( Read more... )

In Greta Gerwig’s new film of Little Women, the March girls wrestle with sexual politics and creative fulfilment. How true is it to Louisa May Alcott’s vision?
Possibly, the article suggests, truer than publishing conventions of the day allowed Alcott to be?
Though I'm now thinking:
a) By the next sequel (Little Men) as I recall John Brooke had ( Read more... )

Yes, of course women who have doctorates may quite reasonably be asked to be addressed by their title, and it is neither a sign of arrogance nor of insecurity, it is merely a descriptor indicating that they have put in the time and effort to obtain a higher degree -
But while I think of all the women who had expertise and authority in various ( Read more... )

Still thinking about that literary versus genre fiction thing, which also seems to be about - it does tend to be framed in terms of a discriminating elite audience vs what appeals to the Undiscriminating Masses - one hesitates to say the unpopular vs the popular?
I was moved to think further about this following a Twitter conversation in which I ( Read more... )