Alexander Waugh
Paperback Blighters
AS A BIBLIOPHILE I have come to detest bookshops. Our high-street chains are staffed by ignorami - young goofs who look blank or injured when asked to perform simple tasks involving words like 'Solzhenitsyn', 'Loeb' or 'trilogy'. Par for the course? A cousin of mine who is studying English at A level had never heard of Byron. When I complained about this to a secondary school Head of ~ng:iish she was not in the least survrised. Half the candidates who had recently applied to after for an English teaching job had never studied Shakespeare, nor had they, during their three years at university, been required to read anything: written before the nineteenth century.
Most bookshops assistants do not read books, or even bother to go through reviews. There was a time when booksellers could recommend good reads by being well-read themselves, by getting to know their customers personally and by understanding a wide range of individual tastes. In the modern age this is
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm