If you dream in Latin, it means (a) you have memorized too much Virgil, (b) you fell asleep over Robert Harris’s Imperium, the first novel in a trilogy about Cicero, or (c) you are almost ill over the violence in an obscure epic poem by Valerius Flaccus, I was lucky to find a Latin copy…

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

21.12.2024

Editor vs. Editor: “Office Politics,” by Wilfrid Sheed – Thornfield Hall

First, let me say that I never worked for a radical magazine like The Outsider, which, according to Gerald Howard in his preface to Wilfrid Sheed’s comic novel, Office Politics, is based on magazines such as The Nation, Dissent, and The New York Review of Books. When I worked in an office, I never noticed…

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

22.12.2024

A Comic Masterpiece : Kingsley Amis’s “Difficulties with Girls” – Thornfield Hall

Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim may be the greatest academic satire of all time, and he won the Booker Prize in 1986 for The Old Devils. I recently discovered his 1988 comic classic, Difficulties with Girls, another splendid showcase for his mordant wit. This loosely-structured satire skewers the publishing business, modern poetry, marriage, adultery, psychiatry, and…

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

23.12.2024

Dead or Alive: What Makes a Good Reading Year? – Thornfield Hall

Was 2024 a good reading year? Every year is a good reading year because I am picky-picky-picky. I don’t finish a book unless it is (a) fascinating, (b) well-written, and (c) works some kind of spell on me. You know, Girls just want to have fun! But we also are earnest. I don’t care if…

home›Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

Thornfield Hall | A Book Blog

Books & Literature

Dreaming in Latin – Thornfield Hall

Editor vs. Editor: “Office Politics,” by Wilfrid Sheed – Thornfield Hall

A Comic Masterpiece : Kingsley Amis’s “Difficulties with Girls” – Thornfield Hall

Dead or Alive: What Makes a Good Reading Year? – Thornfield Hall

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