Are you ready to be a member?

When it comes to London arts and culture, membership is a rather fraught concept. On one hand it seems inimical to the spirit of the …

Writing changes children’s lives

I’ve been pretty rubbish with literary festivals this year, thanks to a combination of a wedding, no money and erratic organisational skills. I didn’t squat …

The multiplex addict’s guide to slightly braver cinema

It’s that time of year when we start to feel the good film itch. Despite the odd much-hyped festival import summer has never been a great …

The Fashion Week Virgin

For a London Fashion Week virgin, the first time you pass between the columns that mark the entrance to Somerset House – swapping the everyday …

Novel depravity

Forget the liberation of Syria. London riots, begone. The news story that has really got book lovers up in arms over the past couple of …

Uncovering Shakespeare’s contemporaries

There’s a brilliant man strutting his stuff on the Southbank this summer. He’s a shrewd, witty Brit who swoops through time …

Theatre embraces old age

Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen of Leenane, currently running at the Young Vic, is a feast of quotable lines and memorable scenes. But of all …

Should authors be shadows or stars?

I remember the day I first searched for Dorothy Dunnett online. Not Googled, note, for these were the days before the G-verb, when trawling the …

Reading inside the echo chamber

Like most people, I like to imagine that I am utterly unique. A true original. An anti-sheep, a lone wolf; a blazer of trails rather …

The stigma of extravagant imagination

When we are young, the world is a magical place. Anything can happen: new, frightening and inexplicable events pepper our infant days. Monsters, fairies, wizards …

Is there such a thing as a female book?

I was sixteen when I read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway for the first time, the first of her novels I had tried. I loved it …

I’ve started so I’ll finish

You choose your partner carefully: because you know they’re your type, because they have a good reputation, because they’ve been recommended by a friend, or …

Libraries need librarians

I kicked off this month with a healthy dose of hypocrisy.

February 5th was Save our Libraries day, a grassroots movement where people across the …

The secret of great sets? Less is more

When was the last time you looked up the name of the set designer in your theatre programme? I did so only last week, at …

Turning over a new leaf

‘Read more books’. It’s a staple New Year’s resolution, and one that was all over Twitter come January 1st. Of course, it’s unlikely to be …