The word for a book-lover is a ‘bibliophile’, a word first recorded in print in 1824. Alternatively, there is the word ‘bookworm’, which is of an altogether more ancient pedigree: it first appears in 1580. But what words should every good bibliophile and bookworm know? Here are some of our […]
Quick, fun William Shakespeare facts As William Shakespeare is the most famous poet and playwright in the English language, we thought we’d share five curious facts about him. We’ve tried to steer clear of the very obvious, partly because we’ve already written about Shakespeare several times before (see, for one […]
By Nicholas Joll The Hitchhiker books by Douglas Adams are interesting literature. At any rate, they are interesting books. One way in which they are interesting is this: they raise the question of what literature, and art in general, is in the first place. This short(ish), three-part essay uses Hitchhiker’s […]
What on earth was he doing writing that? In this post, we explore seven books written by authors more famous for penning other sorts of literary works. These works might be considered the anomaly among these writers’ oeuvres, though sometimes a connection can be glimpsed between the unusual text described and […]
As today is April 1st, better known as April Fools’ Day, we thought we’d separate the truth from the tricks in a special quiz. Below are ten ‘facts’ about literary works or famous writers which may be true or may be utterly false (but often believed to be true). Can […]