School bans backpacks; boy protests by bringing books to school in a microwave
We all remember those Autumn school days, right? Crisp mornings spent trudging through papery leaves, box-fresh stationery jostling in your pencil case, the sweet scent of decay permeating the air. Frosty… Read more »
‘Milkman’ by Anna Burns scoops a refreshingly unpredictable Booker Prize
This year’s Man Booker Prize has been one of frequent surprises.… Read more »
Poultry in margin: how a chicken wearing trousers stormed the internet
Yep, you heard me.… Read more »
‘Holibobs Cottage’ and the child-like language of English gentrification
A crime was committed in St. Ives, Cornwall last week. Well, according to one Twitter user, anyway. It seems like a perfectly innocuous, even [whisper it] nice thing to do, right?… Read more »
Autumn is upon us, which means it is BBTVA (Big Book TV Adaptation) season!
WARNING: [extremely mild] Killing Eve spoilers ahead And so, after the longest, hottest, most waistcoat-wearingest Summer any of us can remember, Autumn is finally making itself known. Long shadows, crispy leaves, the faint… Read more »
A Champagne Super-novel? Noel Gallagher to release his first book in November
Working within the time-honoured tradition of pre-Christmas expensively produced gift-oriented music books (see also in the coming months: Amy Winehouse; Michael Jackson; Morrissey), Noel Gallagher has announced a book, as reported by Andrew Trendell in… Read more »
Someone has won a Welsh bookshop in a raffle and we’re not jealous at all
This week, Charlotte Eyre in the Bookseller reported that a man had won an entire bookshop in a promotional raffle organised over three months by retiring bookseller Paul Morris, of Bookmarks… Read more »
Study, with a chance of meatballs: Ikea is opening an in-store reading room in a London store
Ah, Ikea. Scandinavian, pleasant, clean, cheap, funky, extremely-murky-past-having Ikea. Say what you like about the place, I can’t think of many other stores I’d go if I wanted to, say,… Read more »
Smash that Smiley Face / Frowny Face button as appropriate, for it [was] World Emoji Day!
It’s always World Something Day, isn’t it? So much so that, I suspect, there isn’t a day that isn’t Something Day by now. Are there any free days left? Must we… Read more »
England’s joy-filled World Cup journey could inspire a new generation of players — and readers
The World Cup—and more specifically the crazy, sweltering, joyous four weeks of breathlessly unpredictable football that have just unfolded in Russia—may have done funny things to the English. First and foremost, it has… Read more »