Inspiring Older Readers
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Vincent's Books: Van Gogh and the Writers Who Inspired Him posted on 22 Sep 2020
In those heady pre-Covid days when we were footloose and fancy free, there was nothing I enjoyed more...
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Strangers on a Train posted on 20 Sep 2020
This was Highsmith’s debut novel published in 1950 and comes five years before her more famous The Talented Mr Ripley..
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At the Strangers’ Gate posted on 14 Sep 2020
Guest reviewer, Alun Severn reads New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik's memoir of his early years in New York.
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A Passage to India posted on 13 Sep 2020
In 1912 Forster embarked on what would be a six month trip to India that was inspired by his unrequited romantic feelings for a young Indian man
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The Illustrated Man posted on 11 Sep 2020
Although Ray Bradbury is usually categorised as a writer of science fiction or maybe ‘speculative fiction’, I think that putting him a genre box...
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What is Life: understand biology in five steps posted on 07 Sep 2020
Back in the dim and distant past biology was one of my favourite subjects at school and I did pretty well in the ‘O’ level exam at the end of my time there
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Birds, Beasts and Relatives posted on 31 Aug 2020
This is the second book in what became Durrell’s Corfu trilogy.
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The Parrots posted on 28 Aug 2020
A satire about the corrupt and corrupting nature of literary prizes might seem a bit like shooting fish in a barrel...
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Spirits of the Season: the pleasure of well-chosen ghost stories posted on 24 Aug 2020
Guest writer, Alun Severn ignores the seasonal anomaly and sinks into an artfully selected collection of classic ghost stories.
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Candide, or The Optimist posted on 21 Aug 2020
François-Marie Arouet (1694 – 1778) took the pen-name Voltaire and became one of the leading commentators and satirists of his age.