Subtitled – ‘when Bacon goes bad‘.
Back in those heady green and salad days of my teaching career, I devised a mark-scheme for a favourite class which was, improbably, based on food … Continue reading “[book review] Anna Castle: Murder by Misrule”
Tag: Reading
[book review] Shirley McKay: Hue & Cry
Although this novel (published 2011) begins the Hew Cullan mysteries, I arrived having read the latest, ‘1588: A Calendar of Crime‘ (2016) – whose review you can read here – first.
In many ways, therefore, this felt like a prequel, assembling the cast and creating several relationships I’d already become familiar with.
Think a far superior version of Star Wars episodes I-III …
[book review] Patricia Finney: Firedrake’s Eye
I came to this novel via Finney’s nom-de-plume, PF Chisholm, and her entertaining Sir John Carey novel, A Famine of Horses.
Appropriately enough, Firedrake’s Eye is an entirely different beast …
Continue reading “[book review] Patricia Finney: Firedrake’s Eye”
Book Review: Lamentation, CJ Sansom
If last year was one in which I read hardly any fiction, then 2019 is one in which I’ve gone the opposite way, making a point to explore some of the popular Tudor historical fiction byways …
At some stage I might even produce a comparative guide, but for the moment here’s a review of ‘Lamentation‘, sixth instalment of CJ Sansom‘s ‘Shardlake’ series.
Cultural Capital 01: Dante’s Inferno
Flatterers … are destined to mud-wrestle each other in a lake of diarrhoea … representing the crap they spoke whilst alive, I suppose!
Subtitled: Big Mouth Strikes Again (The Smiths – my students will know why, today of all days)
This article was written for a forthcoming in-house newsletter/magazine. First, hopefully, in a series of articles (Cultural Capital) about influential, dare I say essential works that our students need to get under their belts. I set myself a STRICT word-count of 750, including quotations but excluding titles and references, tried to avoid being too professorial, and I’ve prioritised other texts related to what I’ll be teaching as part of the OCR A Level Engish Literature course. If I’m spared 😉
—
Inferno is a valuable source of AO1 and AO3, people. This won’t replace you reading the original, but it might at least persuade you to give it a go.
Next up? James I‘s Daemonologie, Machiavelli‘s The Prince or The Book of Genesis: open to suggestions …
—
[…] Midway on our path in life,
I came around and found myself searching
Through a wood, the right way blurred and lost.
I know the feeling. More importantly, so begins Dante’s Inferno, the sexiest-titled poem no-one’s read. Perhaps only at a certain age do you start asking Really Big Questions: ‘What am I doing with my life? What’s the point? What’s left?’ Tennyson’s like a dog with a bone on this. Ponytail Shakespeare readers – you’re fed up of hearing this sort of thing from me.
The most important question, though, is surely ‘what’s next?’
Shakespeare’s ‘Salad Days’. Expectations of HVI part 1
‘Please Please Me’ or ‘Abbey Road’?
‘Surfin’ Safari’ or ‘Pet Sounds’?
‘Hangin’ Tough’ or ‘The Block’?
[please note – I’ve only ever listened to just four of those albums. Promise. I hope you can infer which they are!]
As I approach the first monthly instalment of my Arden Amble, what are my expectations from a work I know relatively little about? Why start the journey of a thousand steps with a month reading and blogging about Henry VI Part 1?
Continue reading “Shakespeare’s ‘Salad Days’. Expectations of HVI part 1”
Cheaper than a Harley. Easier than growing a ponytail …
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
Why this? Why now? And why so slow? What on earth would prompt someone to commit to a read-through of Shakespeare’s plays?
I decided to do this about 6 weeks ago, let’s say about the end of November 2016. In many ways this post is a way to work through my motivations, as well as finally committing to the project.
Continue reading “Cheaper than a Harley. Easier than growing a ponytail …”
A chronological nightmare …
I’ve been toying with the idea of a Shakespeare readathon for a while, and am trying to justify it to myself. When I do work out the ‘why?’, I’ll post …
In the meantime, a friend received a full set of BBC Shakespeare on DVD for Christmas. This worried me quite a bit: mostly because I had a small (and I DO mean small) cameo in the gift’s selection. But, what if she hates them, or simply finds them staid and sooo-1980s? Their overwhelmingly earnest nature and general quaintness – which I find as endearing as original series Star Trek – might pall quickly.
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 