The Tortured Poets Department: A love letter to readers everywhere

Bella Farley examines the literary references in Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’, and what makes this album so appealing to readers

Literary genres: Necessary or restrictive?

With an approximate number of 4 million books being published every year, originality is hard to come by. The confining idea that we must fit books into specific genres is a key factor contributing towards the ever more apparent lack of variety. In a bookstore, books are organised into sections, by genre. While this can […]

Should we be able to give books a bad review?

Blind in the mind – what it’s like to read with Aphantasia

The halo effect in Eliza Clark’s ‘Boy Parts’

The tragedy of Ophelia: Breaking her silence

Literary ‘kung fu pandas’: the Chinese wuxia genre and why Westerners don’t know it (Part II)

Shakespeare’s sonnets and the complexities of being in love

The joys of judging a book by its cover

The disturbing reality behind the ‘happily ever after’