JONATHAN CALDER celebrates one of the great children’s writers – somewhere between Arthur Ransome and Enid Blyton. Continue reading
Category Archives: Books
Rear-view review: Who’s Really Who
DAN ATKINSON revisits a compendium of people who really mattered in 1980s Britain. Continue reading
Shellshocked: outtakes
Some odds and ends left over from ALWYN TURNER’s book A Shellshocked Nation, featuring child movie stars, strippers, Nazis and boxing. Continue reading
Shellshocked: quotes from novels
ALWYN TURNER chooses some of his favourite quotes from the fiction of Britain between the wars. Continue reading
Orwell belongs to us!
ALAN TYLER on The Lion & The Unicorn, Big Brother and Auntie. Continue reading
The (rest is) History, Man
BEN FINLAY celebrates 50 years of Malcom Bradbury’s satire of fashionable left politics. Continue reading
The lost world of Alexander Baron
SIMON MATTHEWS on the novelist and TV screenwriter Alexander Baron. Continue reading
Decade: The Salt Path (2018)
FINLAY McLAREN on the cultural phenomenon of The Salt Path, and how it sold us what we deserved. Continue reading
‘Mystery among the muffins’
Miss Marple doesn’t really belong in Swinging London, concludes ALWYN TURNER. Continue reading
Sausages: an anthology
ALWYN TURNER selects some passages from British literature that concern sausages. Continue reading
Rear-view review: Bloody Margaret
DAN ATKINSON revisits some Thatcherite fantasies by Mark Lawson. Continue reading
Alwyn Turner: Chronicler of Modern Britain
ALWYN TURNER reviews an AI-generated biography of, er, himself. Continue reading
