Nigel Andrew
Some Like it Hoot
Owls loomed large in the birdscape of my suburban boyhood: tawny owls nested in the local parks, ghostly white barn owls glimmered from time to time in the dusk, and the occasional little owl – the owl of Minerva – was to be seen on nearby smallholdings. At night we would hear the tawny owls’ hoots and the less frequent screech of the barn owl. One of the things I learned from Miriam Darlington’s new book is that the French language usefully distinguishes between hooting owls, les hiboux, and screechers, les chouettes.
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
'Reading Taylor’s book has also made me join a book club. I did not like the January book; I did enjoy drinking gin while saying why.'
@clamorousvoice explores the history of women readers.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-readers
'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe