Literary criticism

Novelist As a Vocation by Haruki Murakami review – the secrets behind the literary phenomenon

The celebrated novelist offers insights into his ways of working, his direct style and the moments that shaped him in this intriguing book on writing

Sean O’Hagan

06, Nov, 2022 @9:00 AM

A Horse at Night: On Writing by Amina Cain review – reading as a sensual act

The novelist’s atmospheric evocation of favourite scenes from others’ books strips them of their weight

Ankita Chakraborty

01, Nov, 2022 @7:00 PM

TS Eliot’s women: the unsung female voices of The Waste Land

As the epic poem turns 100, devotee Jude Rogers examines the work’s thrilling, intriguing women, including Emily Hale, Eliot’s first love, to whom he wrote more than 1,000 recently revealed letters

Jude Rogers

30, Oct, 2022 @12:00 PM

Letter: Peter Davison obituary

Penny Jefferson writes: Though always serious about his work, he did not take himself too seriously

Penny Jefferson

20, Oct, 2022 @3:43 PM

In brief: Am I Normal?; Orwell’s Roses; Milk Teeth – reviews

Historian Sarah Chaney unpicks our norms, Rebecca Solnit takes an eclectic approach to an English literary hero, and Jessica Andrews tells a fractured story of escape

Hannah Beckerman

17, Jul, 2022 @3:00 PM

Cheerfulness by Timothy Hampton review – the power of pep

This literary and cultural survey of a neglected emotion takes in Beckett, Boy Scouts and breakfast cereal

Peter Bradshaw

15, Jul, 2022 @8:00 AM

In brief: The Wrath to Come; Briefly, A Delicious Life; This Much Is True – reviews

Sarah Churchwell’s cultural history reassesses Gone With the Wind, Nell Stevens’s first novel impresses and Miriam Margolyes’s memoir fascinates

Alexander Larman

10, Jul, 2022 @4:30 AM

Love and the Novel by Christina Lupton review – can you live life by the book?

In this clever, thought-provoking memoir, a married academic’s life is ‘derailed by desire’. Can reading help her find a way forward?

Rachel Cooke

12, Jun, 2022 @8:00 AM

Emma Smith: ‘Books do extraordinary work, but we can overstate their importance’

The Shakespeare critic and author on her new history of books and readers, and how it’s made her think about the contents of our shelves

Alex Preston

30, Apr, 2022 @5:00 PM

A rarely acknowledged leading light of literary criticism | Letter

Letter: Cambridge University may not have always welcomed female academics, but Laura Riding’s work inspired an era of new criticism, writes Dr Mark Jacobs

Letters

29, Apr, 2022 @3:24 PM