Literature

A little while ago I had the chance to chat with Leah and Ross from Five Leaves bookshop about winning the title of Best Independent Bookshop in the Midlands and Wales before then going onto earn the national Best Independent Bookshop Award too! How does it feel to have...

Not far from the town centre of Nottingham, if you wish to wander on the bus, sits Newstead Abbey, nestled in the heart of Sherwood Forest. Having worked at the Abbey for two years now, I can tell you that I have fallen more in love with the building...

Based on Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play Et dukkehjem, A Doll’s House is a thought-provoking Scandinavian drama that tears into the domestic realm to expose the cracked relationship between a strikingly traditionalist husband and his free-spirited wife. Set in nineteenth-century Norway, yet holding a striking relevance in the present day,...

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea is a parallel novel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, following the story of Mr Rochester and Bertha Mason, his first wife who is seen in Jane Eyre mainly as the madwoman kept secretly hidden away in the attic. The connection to Jane Eyre is...

This instalment of Lizzie’s Lent expect the temptations of internet shopping and book obsessed English student conversations… This challenge is starting to get harder now! As part of the rules, I can browse as much as I like, but this has its own challenges. It feels like I’m facing the book equivalent...

The terms of prisoner sentences often spark controversy within the public. The idea that prison is for punishment leads many to think prisoner’s sentences should be served in a state of exclusion and isolation from any outside amenities such as televisions, films, art and literature. Other people, however, feel...

I was more than a little intrigued to discover whether the opening night of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men at the Theatre Royal, endlessly studied by bored fifteen year olds around the UK, would be able to breathe new life into the novella.  With the designers going to...