I am 31 and fully dead. Lloyd Cole says the first song he ever wrote about being middle-aged was Hey Rusty. Anybody listening to his 1987 album 'Mainstream' can tell he's having a bit of an identity crisis: songs like Sean Penn Blues and My Bag are sharp satires of a world Cole doesn't seem... Continue Reading →
Uncover Forgotten Gems in Classic Literature – For FREE!
A friendly guide to the depths of Project Gutenberg.
Poetry 101:1 – Summarise
transcript of a podcast I wrote on how to decode poetry at a basic level. episode 1 - summarise.
Georgia Skies
A short poem written during my PhD work on Gone With The Wind.
The Abbey.
A poem inspired by Lord Byron's ancestral home, Newstead Abbey.
Sally Rooney as Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler, whose books show the mundane and interior lives of radicals, sits alongside our foremost millennial novelist, reading her works is reading a version of the anxieties and experiences my compatriots and I have lived.
My Journey To Breakfast At Tiffany’s
My first encounter with Breakfast At Tiffany’s was Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy and rhinestones. Like a lot of little girls, I had the calendar and the costume jewellery and a battery-powered vintage-looking alarm clock that had the Robert McGinnis poster emblazoned on it in technicolour - one that I kept long after it stopped functioning... Continue Reading →
The ‘Bright Young Things’ Cinematic Universe
In the novels of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford, the same characters crop up over and over again - whether it’s Bridey (the priggish elder brother from Brideshead Revisited) falling for Adam Symes’ faux fashion hacks in Vile Bodies or Linda Radlett being a minor character in Polly Hampton’s book, the British scene of the... Continue Reading →
Kinks, Kids, and Bunny Girls: What’s the deal with all these Lolas?
There is something about that name - Lola - that when you come across it in any kind of media you know there’s something dark and sexy about that girl. Across a century the name’s ‘meaning’ has remained the same - so what is it about Lola?
Anne Brontë – why should you read her?
Is Anne really worth the time investment for the less-than-hardcore Brontë readers and the casual literature buffs?
Late Romantic 