In Jane Austen’s Footsteps With Gyles Brandreth Rating: This Is My House Rating: Life wasn’t so different a couple of hundred years ago. Sunseekers rushed to the beach on the first warm day in spring — and because bathing costumes hadn’t been invented, they all went skinny-dipping. There were riots on the streets of Bristol, … Read more
Sylvia Plath is one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Sylvia Plath was first published in the children’s section of the Boston Herald, aged eight. She would go on to attend the University of Cambridge, before marrying Ted Hughes, who would later become the Poet Laureate. The couple … Read more
Queen in cream! Letizia of Spain looks pristine in a neutral frock as she joins her husband King Felipe VI for a private literary prize-giving ceremony Queen Letizia of Spain looked effortlessly elegant in a cream dress today Royal, 48, joined her husband King Felipe VI, 52, in Albeniz Palace in Barcelona They presented the poet Joan Margarit … Read more
Four authors have resigned from JK Rowling’s literary agency after accusing it of failing to issue a public statement in support of transgender rights and equality. Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir issued a joint statement to announce their resignation from The Blair Partnership. A fourth author is also understood to have … Read more
Four authors have resigned from JK Rowling’s literary agency after accusing it of failing to issue a public statement in support of transgender rights and equality. Fox Fisher, Drew Davies and Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir issued a joint statement to announce their resignation from The Blair Partnership. A fourth author is also understood to have … Read more
Hay on WiFi! Literary festival goes virtual and will be free to view online thanks to £350,000 in donations Hay Festival forced to go online amid pandemic but still features famous lineup Some 80 live broadcasts and events to take place which are all free to view The festival was once described by Bill Clinton … Read more
THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner (Granta £16.99, 304 pp) THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner (Granta £16.99, 304 pp) American auto-fiction star Ben Lerner’s third novel —which comes endorsed by the uber-cool likes of Sally Rooney and Maggie Nelson — is a potent, painful picking-apart of trauma; the beginnings of the age of information … Read more
OLIGARCHY OLIGARCHY by Scarlett Thomas (Canongate £14.99, 224 pp) by Scarlett Thomas (Canongate £14.99, 224 pp) We never see the oligarch in Scarlett Thomas’s latest: he’s a fabulously wealthy, shadowy Russian, possibly criminal, who has sent his adolescent daughter Natasha, the recently discovered product of a long-ago fling, to an all-girls English boarding school, ostensibly … Read more
LITERARY FICTION By Anthony Cummins For The Daily Mail Published: 22:08 GMT, 14 November 2019 | Updated: 22:46 GMT, 14 November 2019 THE CHEFFE by Marie NDiaye (MacLehose £12.99, 288 pp) THE CHEFFE by Marie NDiaye (MacLehose £12.99, 288 pp) As the thrill of watching MasterChef hopefuls sweat over their confits never grows old, here’s … Read more
CHRISTMAS IN AUSTIN by Benjamin Markovits (Faber £16.99, 432 pp) CHRISTMAS IN AUSTIN by Benjamin Markovits (Faber £16.99, 432 pp) If you haven’t read the first in this rangy, yet addictively immersive, American family saga, all you need know is that Paul Essinger, retired from his undistinguished tennis career, is having a slow-motion breakdown. Now, … Read more