Marginalia
Marginalia is where readers leave traces of themselves in books. These essays explore rereading, forgotten novels, literary fashions, and the changing relationship between texts and the people who encounter them. Some begin with a book. Others begin with a question. All are attempts to think a little more carefully about what reading is for.
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Unlikely Shelf-Mates?
in MarginaliaAny normal, sane person feels the need for post-apocalyptic body horror now and again. Don’t they?
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100 posts: what HAVE I been thinking?
in MarginaliaNot a content plan – more an organic map of what’s occupied my mind since May, and what you can find in my first 100 posts here.
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Day Zero: ‘Where is my Mind?’ Here!
in MarginaliaTwenty-six thousand words on English Literature? I’m just getting started. Come and join the conversation.
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What A Way To Go, by Bella Mackie (2024)
in MarginaliaAusten’s forensic observations of society wield the same scalpel; Mackie’s don’t bother to sew up the corpse with the neat stitches of ‘happy ever after’.
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How books (and Bookers) find their readers
in MarginaliaWho are book prizes for? Not me, when my TBR list is in four figures …
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The Lodger, by Marie Belloc Lowndes (1913)
in MarginaliaHow much should suspicion cost? What compromises become acceptable when poverty is waiting just outside the front door? Is to permit to promote?
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Holmes and Moriarty, by Gareth Rubin (2024)
in MarginaliaIf you’re writing about such familiar and well-loved characters, you ought to expect a degree of nerdiness and scrutiny amongst your readers.
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Insomnia
in MarginaliaI needed sleep; now, I think I may need to get out more. At least I didn’t wake my partner.
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Carrion Crow, by Heather Parry (2025)
in MarginaliaMarguerite’s story makes for grim reading, not least when you realise that the novel is loosely inspired by a real-life case.