The Great Debate
Both the orchard apple and the festive mince pie offer their own compelling answers, each with its own kind of perfect, incomplete charm…
Europe writes itself. Again. And we are thrilled to have you here to read it.
Will The Earth Have the Final Word?
One day, there will be no political victory worth celebrating, no fortune left to spend and no medal shining brightly enough to distract us from the truth. The Earth will have the final word unless we choose, right now, to stand together and protect it…
Human Farm
Power does not vanish when tyrants are overthrown; it merely waits for…
The Sad Sound of Silence
The media rightly describes itself as the watchdog of democracy. But a…
Simply Fans
As the next reader stepped forward with a stack of three hardbacks, the writer realised then that though writing was a solitary endeavour spent staring at blank pages, his words had built a quiet, enduring community in the world outside…
Chasing Atlantis in Europe
While many scholars view the account as an allegory about the decay of empires, explorers and historians continue to search for traces of this legendary realm…
What’s in a Name?
For Hitler Mussolini Simeón, the next test will not be his name. In Queropalca, voters seemed largely unfazed by the global headlines. For them, the more pressing question was whether their new mayor could actually deliver the promised paved road…
Queen Catalina’s Six Aragonese Aunts
Leading the charge was Aunt Doña Inés, a woman whose glare could sour fresh milk at fifty paces. Behind her came Doña Beatriz, Doña Teresa, Doña María, Doña Lucía and Aunt Doña Juana, who carried a silver flask of holy water like a loaded pistol…
IncrediEurope
‘Have you heard that somewhere near the North Pole there is a town where it is illegal to die?’ I was asked this question yesterday by someone who seemed to know what he was talking about, a man who was otherwise in his right mind. ‘Hmm,’ was my short reply.…
Their Mothers: The Roots of Greatness
Long before Count Dracula ever emerged from the shadows of Transylvania to haunt Gothic literature, the dark imagination of Bram Stoker was cultivated in a bedridden childhood in Dublin. The architect of that imagination was his mother, Charlotte Blake Thornley Stoker. A woman of formidable intelligence, social conscience and narrative…
The Lost Crimson Heart
One second, it was anchored by a fine black thread wrapped twice around her wrist, and the next, it was adrift, caught in an updraft and carried along the rough concrete wall. Geum reached, a reflex of hope and panic, but her fingertips only brushed the tail of the string…
Kāma-sūtra – Intimacy for Dummies?
The Kāma-sūtra is not a manual for sensual enjoyment. If that were the case, it would be a very short work indeed. It is merely a detailed discourse on the Art of Living and the Art of Well-Being, necessary for any cultured person and ranging from cooking and music to…
D1.
Dream big, but live in the real world. Fantasy worlds are beautiful, but reality offers true opportunities to grow. After all, that is where we actually get to live them out…
Literary Hackers
There is an important irony here. A writer can describe black-hat techniques without becoming a black-hat literary hacker. Orwell exposes linguistic manipulation precisely so that readers can recognise it. His novel is therefore closer to a security researcher revealing a vulnerability than to an attacker exploiting one for personal gain.…
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Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight
The tension is personified by Statler and Waldorf, the two elderly cynics perched permanently in the box seats. They are the ultimate…
Books of Our Continent
From the quiet shelves of forty-four national archives and ancient university libraries to the cosy corners of independent bookstores and modest home…
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