I don’t usually make a point of reviewing ‘academic’ books for a set of very good reasons. I guess the main of which is the fact that I doubt any of my readers would particularly want to read about some obscure critical theory that was written up decades ago. But upon reading a critical theory [...]

Noted by the author himself as being a ‘trivial play for serious people’, The Importance of being Earnest embodies one of those rare occasions when the writer doesn’t seem to take themselves too seriously.
The general plotline follows two men, Algernon and Jack, who both seem to lead double lives in a sort of country-mouse, town-mouse [...]

When I first began reading this novel, I was reminded of a book I was forced to read at college, namely Enduring love by Ian McEwan. After groaning inwardly at the similarities (needless to say, I didn’t get on with the latter book at all) I continued reading, and I was extremely glad that I [...]

As far as the Daughters of Decadence and the Fien de Siecle go, I’m really not sold on most of their writing. But encountering The Yellow Wallpaper is encountering much more than the other stories; stories about women being pains in the asses, or rebelling against common norms of Victorian gender roles; all fairly straightforward. [...]

The plot of this novel follows a gang war in the dark underworld of Brighton, being led by the ruthless Pinkie who has killed Hale, a journalist. The killing of this character is the catalyst for Ida Arnold, a friend of Hale, to investigate and begin the chain of events leading to the book’s climax.
Brighton [...]

Since Phillip K. Dick’s ‘The Man in the High Castle’, writers have often wondered ‘what if’ big historical events hadn’t turned out the way they did, and where would that leave us? This is the subject my latest review, Robert Harris’ ‘Fatherland’, a book that looks at the decisive moment in recent history- the end [...]

If you thought genetic engineering was a recent thing, then you’re dead wrong.
When most people consider the roots of science fiction to lie with Jules Verne, whose legacy includes stories of submarines and journeying to thetars s a long time befor technology and B movies could get that far, I compare him to a man [...]

Normally I do my best to read a piece of literature without first having any sort of preconceptions about how good or bad it’s going to be. If I think I’m going to be bias, I simply either don’t read the book, or just wait until those conceptions have passed. (I think I’ll be waiting [...]

Author: Samuel Beckett
Okay, I’m afraid you will have to bear with me on this review, dear reader. Not because I don’t really have anything to say about the latest play I’ve been told to read during my last term as an English undergraduate, but rather because after finishing this piece, I’m still rather torn as [...]

And you thought your neighbours were murder.
I found this book on an empty shelf (second hand I might add) last year while visiting a book warehouse near my college. It didn’t appeal to me at first, mainly as I had some authors and titles already in mind, but something about it appealed to me. Whether [...]