Vintage GWR LMS poster of Christ Church, Oxford Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by Rebecca F Kuang. Harper Voyager, 2022. And they said,…

Albrecht Dürer: ‘Der heilige Hieronymus im Gehäus’ (1514); St Jerome in His Study. As a monoglot reader with limited fluency in French and even less in Italian and Welsh there’s a…

Stylised raven from the Sutton Hoo shield. Hilda and the Bird Parade by Luke Pearson. Flying Eye Books / Nobrow Ltd, 2016 (2012). The appeal that graphic novels can have for me is generally the com…

Sophie Anderson’s ‘Scheherazade’ (ca 1870), The New Art Gallery Walsall. ‘The Kiss’ (1977), ‘Our Lady of the Massacre’ (1979) and ‘The Kitchen Child&…

Orava Castle, Slovakia, engraving by G A Troitzsch after Ferdinand Laufberger. The Castle by Franz Kafka. Das Schloß (1926) translated by Anthea Bell, introduction and notes by Ritchie Robertson. O…

Exclusive: Exhibition focussing on Finnish writer and artist’s illustrations will include original art from her first Moomins book

This reread of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, first published 300 years ago in 1726, was inspired by Chris of Calmgrove Books – see his initial post here. He’s doing a…

Genuine authenticated fake AI photo of an extended Victorian family (credit: unknown). Classic Horror: An Anthology. Penguin Horror, Penguin Books, 2025. Cursory research into the various subgenres…

The investigation, which follows a broadcast by Channel 4 News, is being folded into the inquiry that has been underway into other donations.

The Lovers, from the Rider–Waite Tarot. Madame Sosostris and the Festival for the Broken-Hearted by Ben Okri. Head of Zeus, 2026 (2025). ‘The festival would have to be somewhere fabulous. The…

1860 photograph by Nadar, believed to be Jeanne Duval (Florine Prosper), Baudelaire’s ‘Black Venus’. ‘Black Venus’ (1980) and ‘The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe&#82…

“Le Drapeau noir” by René Magritte (1937). Biggles and Co. by Captain W E Johns. No 10 in the Biggles series. Red Fox, 2004 (1936). Biggles shook his head sorrowfully. ‘We may be airmen, but …

The former prime minister said he would now turn his focus to international affairs.

The port of Bristol in the 1700s: Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard, master of the ‘Antelope’, who was making a voyage to th…

Painting of begonias in traditional Chinese style. The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories edited by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang. Tordotcom Publishing, Tom Doherty Associates, 2022. Fifteen auth…

I ask the Government to set up a National Commission on Electoral Reform, as advocated by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections. It should be an independent, time limited, expert led re...

© C A Lovegrove. The Wolf Princess by Cathryn Constable. Chicken House, 2015 (2012). It was winter. It was snowing. There was a girl lost in the woods. And — Sophie felt her chest tighten with fear…

Photo: Puffin Books For the bookish-minded there is often a tingle of recognition when an individual is spotted so engrossed in a book that they’re almost unaware of their surroundings. They …

Release Day 18 August 2026.The eBook version is availble for pre-order through all the usual ebook retailers.You can also buy the print format thrugh all the usual stores and online retailers.Cover Ar...

William Holman Hunt, ‘The Scapegoat’ (1856). My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women, introduced by Lyse Doucet, with an afterword by Lucy Hannah. MacLehose Press, 202…

Booksellers are reporting mysterious bulk orders. It's thought the books are being used to train AI - and ending up pulped.

A trompe-l’œil floor tile design. “There are three kinds of people in the world – those who can count, and those who can’t.” Coined in the late 19th century from Ancient Greek παρ…

This week I delve into books newly read and reviewed, roam through some of the most compelling literary commentary on the blogosphere, mark a variety of celebrations (from Tove Jansson & Moomi…

© C A Lovegrove. The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald. Harper Perennial, 2004 (1990). “When your heart is breaking, it is nothing but an absurd illusion to think you can taste the blood.…

A trompe-l’œil floor tile design. “There are three kinds of people in the world – those who can count, and those who can’t.” Coined in the late 19th century from Ancient Greek παρ…

Following my two week hiatus, I turn to books read and reviewed across the Internet, explore standout literary writing, note a range of anniversaries (including Tove Jansson Day, National Book Love…

#ToveTrove: Reading Tove Jansson @ bookjotter.com Art in Nature by Tove Jansson. Dockskåpet och andra berättelser (1978) translated by Thomas Teal. Sort Of Books, 2012. The Swedish title of Tove Ja…

© C A Lovegrove. Boardwalk on pebble bank, Newgale sands, Pembrokeshire.

Lemuel Gulliver, in his 58th year. “So geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures fill their gaps, And o’er uninhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns.” — ‘…

The art of Maeve Gilmore and Mervyn Peake, married writer-artists who moved from house to house many times in the course of their lives together, had a tendency to burst out of formal spaces (studi…

Vienna, 1945. Fly Away Home by Christine Nöstlinger. Maikäfer, flieg! Mein Vater, das Kriegsende, Cohn und ich (1973) translated by Anthea Bell (1985). Vintage Classics, 2013. The story I’m g…

The seasons are awry and nature’s out of kilter with itself; some things come sooner, others late, yet others fail to appear at all. Plagues of ladybirds appear one year; a profusion of ragwo…

For Kieran Dodds, photographing people with red hair has become something of an obsession over the past decade or more.

Édouard Manet’s ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’ (1863): Musée d’Orsay. Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, translated, with introduction and notes, by Robin Buss. Penguin Books, 2…

I haven’t watched the most recent interpretation of The Odyssey (my favourite is still possibly Ulysses 31, the Franco-Japanese animated series set in space), but it has led to SO much online…

The Return of the Antelope by Willis Hall, illustrated by Rowan Barnes-Murphy. Fontana Lions, 1985. I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard, master of the ‘Antelope&#82…

© C A Lovegrove. The Snow Was Dirty by Georges Simenon. La neige était sale translated by Howard Curtis. Penguin Classics, 2018 (1948). Frank Friedmaier is a young man of nineteen in a city occupie…

MY VERDICT: A Frenchman’s bitter diary. Gorgeous prose, but the contempt for Japan and its inhabitants made it a painful read.

© C A Lovegrove. The Snow Was Dirty by Georges Simenon. La neige était sale translated by Howard Curtis. Penguin Classics, 2018 (1948). Frank Friedmaier is a young man of nineteen in a city occupie…

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