A dear friend drew my attention to an essay by C.S. Lewis a couple of days ago, and it was too late at night to respond properly, but I feel the question she raised deserves a proper response ( Read more... )

I tried to do it strictly with books I'd read in the last 12 months, but I cheated a couple of times.


( Read more... )

The big problem with Mansfield Park is that compared to Pride and Prejudice it's not as funny, and nobody can really understand why Fanny and Edmund disapprove of amateur theatre ( Read more... )

I've just read this essay by George Eliot for the first time, thanks to Project Gutenberg ( Read more... )

We all thought we knew that "The Paperbag Princess" was a story teaching that it is good for girls to be resourceful and independent.  But my historical research shows that is not the real story at all!!!  The paper bag is a later addition!!!  The original story of the prince, princess and dragon is much, much older and says nothing about women's ( Read more... )

We've just taken out a subscription to 'De Standaard', a Flemish daily paper, and it happens that it arrived in our postbox for the first time this morning.  They celebrated International Women's Day by carrying over twenty short interviews with women.  Which was great.  But it was a pity that they chose to interview only Flemish women, and only ( Read more... )

Not only am I voting in Belgian and not British elections, but I am more outraged by Belgian than by British politicians.  I hate and fear Bart De Wever more than David Cameron.  Only by a small margin, but this week Bart is definitely in the lead.

Here I translate a key paragraph from an NVA election leaflet we received today - and these aren't the ( Read more... )

"Other animals don't go to so much trouble before they mate, do they?"

Williams writes here about the importance of difficulty in conversation - of realising that you have not yet completely understood - and I found reading this book to be like a difficult conversation.  I think he may be saying something important, but he isn't saying it very clearly.  The book is relatively free of footnotes and was probably ( Read more... )

An Anglican clergyman I once knew told me that he had asked job interview candidates how they would answer the following question ( Read more... )