Transports of delight: 5 great Books about reading other Books

It wasn’t a plan particularly, but then that’s part of the joy of books – I never have a plan for what I’m going to sink my teeth into next. It is usually just a matter of wanting something different from the one before. But a couple of books recently have done that self-referential thing: they’re […]
What’s to like? 5 things to detest about depression

Here’s one of those infernal lists. It hopefully speaks for itself.
Veiled irrelevance: a surprising point of connection?

As ever slow on the uptake, but I finally got round to reading Azar Nafisi’s beautifully written 2004 book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. It is a rich, highly thoughtful and thought-provoking memoir from an Iranian English literature professor about her life and students (in particular the small but diverse groupof women in her reading group). She meditates […]
U2’s Songs of Innocence (4): No longer alone with tectonic forces? VOLCANO

There’s a surprising amount of the natural world on Songs of Innocence, just as there was in fact in No Line on the Horizon (the title kind of gives that away, I suppose). Nature has always provided poetic inspiration, but perhaps it’s not the most common imagery for rock ‘n roll. (Though having said that, you can no […]
Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 73 (October 2014)

Sacred Treasure C S Lewis on Friendship Are the Apocryphal Gospels true? Ian Paul picks up Simon Gathercole’s address at the recent British NT conference If you missed it, this is an extraordinary episode of BBC’s Panorama about the Christians working in North Korea for Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (30 minutes – definitely worth […]