The Book Stand

New Year Changes (2022): At the BookShelf (Facebook Page)

Hi all. It has probably become obvious to anyone that may have been following this Blog for some time that posts have become few and far between of late. I think I have more-or-less struggled over the years with times of poor health, but no more so than the current time. It is a many faceted problem and I won’t go into all of the details. Essentially, something needs to change (or a number of…

How poetry can help us understand the urgency of the climate crisis

Chursina Viktoriia/Shutterstock Christina Thatcher, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityI discovered Ellen Bass’ poem, Birdsong from My Patio, during the first UK lockdown. My garden hedge was stuffed with sparrows who seemed to always be singing. I expected to see and hear them in this poem too and, at first, I did: “I’ve never heard this much song, trills pure as crystal bells”. However, images of…

Iris Murdoch: what the writer and philosopher can teach us about friendship

Brian Harris / Alamy Stock Photo Cathy Mason, University of CambridgeMaking friends might come easier to some people than others, but in general, we all use the same criteria for forming relationships. We are drawn to people who share our interests, or who we simply like and admire. Once we make friends, we tend to hold them in high esteem. We speak positively about our friends, sometimes…

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr: Senegalese novelist’s win is a landmark for African literature

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr on a TV show after winning the Prix Goncourt. Photo by Eric Fougere/Corbis via Getty Images Caroline D. Laurent, American University of Paris (AUP)The Prix Goncourt – the oldest and most prestigious literary prize in France – has been awarded to 31-year-old Mohamed Mbougar Sarr from Senegal. He’s the youngest winner since 1976 and the first from sub-Saharan Africa. Critics…

Booker Prize: Damon Galgut’s The Promise is a reminder of South Africa’s continued and difficult journey to a better future

Daniel Conway, University of WestminsterThis article may contain spoilers. Damon Galgut, a white South African playwright and novelist, has won the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise, a satirical portrait of a white family living in Pretoria in post-apartheid South Africa. The story is a very personal one for Galgut, who grew up in Pretoria and witnessed late apartheid and its…

Bestselling Author Wilbur Smith Has Died

Bestselling Author Wilbur Smith Has died in South Africa, aged 88. He wrote some 49 books, including the Courtney series and one that I have only just finished, ‘River God,’ the first in his Ancient Egypt series. For more visit: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/14/bestselling-author-wilbur-smith-dies-aged-88

I translated the Marquis de Sade’s only gothic novel into English

Wikimedia Will McMorran, Queen Mary University of LondonIn 1813, a year before he died, the Marquis de Sade wrote his last published book, The Marquise de Ganges. The novel is based on a 17th-century true crime that Sade – notorious aristocrat, libertine and pornographer – probably first heard of as a young boy, and later read about while locked up in the Bastille. According to the accounts of…

Private Eye at 60: the prime ministerial parodies that tell a history of modern Britain

Martin Farr, Newcastle UniversityThe fortnightly magazine Private Eye turns 60 this year. When it launched, it helped initiate the “satire boom”, and, more profoundly, the increasing lack of deference those in positions of authority could expect from the press, television, and, consequently, the public. One of the magazine’s most popular and longest features has been the prime ministerial parody.…

Book review: Sean Kelly’s The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison

Joshua Black, Australian National University“How can you tell if a politician is lying?” It is a favourite joke of my grandfather’s, and the punchline is all too obvious: “His mouth will be moving.” The joke gives succinct expression to a cynicism that has shaped Australian politics since the introduction of self-government in the 1850s. The implication, of both the joke and the culture informing…

Damon Galgut’s Booker-winning novel probes white South Africa and the land issue

Damon Galgut at a photocall for this year’s Booker Prize in London. TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images Sofia Kostelac, University of the WitwatersrandSouth African writer Damon Galgut has won the UK’s most prestigious literary award, the Booker Prize, for his work The Promise. It was Galgut’s third shortlisting for the career-defining award, which has evaded him until now. In 2003 he was…

The publishers who made Shakespeare a global phenomenon

Bruce Amos/Shutterstock Andrew Murphy, Trinity College DublinWalk into any decent bookshop today in search of Shakespeare’s plays and you’re sure to find at least one. And even if you can’t find what you’re looking for on the bookshelves, there is always the internet, where a great variety of different complete works and editions are also available – almost all of them free of charge. This,…

Harry Potter and the legacy of the world’s most famous boy wizard

Jane Sunderland, Lancaster UniversityHarry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first film in the eight-part series, has reached its 20th anniversary. Released in 2001, it became the highest-grossing film of that year and the second-highest-grossing ever at the time (it’s now number 76). The film follows Harry’s first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as he begins his formal…

Betty Crocker turns 100 – why generations of American women connected with a fictional character

Betty Crocker’s first official portrait, on the left, from 1936. Her most recent portrait, from 1996, is on the right. BettyCrocker.com Elizabeth A. Blake, Clark UniversityThough she celebrates her 100th birthday this year, Betty Crocker was never born. Nor does she ever really age. When her face did change over the past century, it was because it had been reinterpreted by artists and shaped by…

What makes a good literary hoax? A political point, for starters

Spanish authors (from left), Agustin Martinez, Jorge Diaz and Antonio Mercero, who have been writing bestsellers as Carmen Mola. Quique Garcia/EPA Camilla Nelson, University of Notre Dame Australia and Kerrie Davies, UNSWLiterary hoaxes thrive on exposure. At best, they are politically transgressive. They strip away anything smug, pretentious or hypocritical to reveal an uglier reality…

Guide to the classics: Euripides’ The Trojan Women – an unflinching look at the brutality of war

Aomawa Baker as Andromache in a production of The Trojan Woman in Los Angeles. Wikimedia Commons Chris Mackie, La Trobe UniversityThe story of the long struggle for the life of the city of Troy might be thought of as the pre-eminent Greek myth. Extensive narratives of the war are told in the oral traditions of myth and literature, and they also appear very significantly in the material evidence…

New research finds a growing appetite for Australian books overseas, with increased demand in China

Actor Nicole Kidman and Big Little Lies’ Australian author Liane Moriarty at the Emmys in 2017. Peter Mitchell/AAP Paul Crosby, Macquarie University and Jan Zwar, Macquarie UniversityMany authors dream of overseas success for their work, but how Australian books find publication in other territories and languages is not well understood even in the publishing industry. Our new research has found…

I have been a little ill and under the weather of late, hence my lack of activity here. I’m hoping to restart posting to the Blog here this weekend though. Also, I have just started a new account over at Instagram. So please go and follow me there also if you like.Visit At the BookShelf on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/atthebookshelf_blog/