Take a journey back in time to the early days of The Reader. It may look very different, but between the covers you’ll find the same wealth of reading matter, experience, enthusiasm, encouragement and counsel. This is “something real to carry home when the day is done”.
John McGahern remembers how reading changed his life:
‘There are no days more full in childhood than those days that were not lived at all, the days lost in a favourite book’Anthony Sher contributes a piece from his fourth book The Feast:
‘a darkness full of faces, thousands upon thousands of foreheads and cheeks just catching a reflection of the stage light, which makes them gleam with a fleshy, secret eagerness.’Two teachers, a school governor and the director of a theatre company discuss bringing Shakespeare to schools:
‘A school audience is probable the closest to how an Elizabethan audience would behave. A lack of reverence can be a healthy thing’
ALSO: Poetry from Elizabeth Jennings, Bernard Beatty talks about Byron, reviews of Russell Hoban, Ann Michaels, and Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd – from book to small screen.
Features
Elizabeth Jennings – Poem
John McGahern – Reading and Writing
Richard Hill – Thee Poems
Antony Sher - from The Feast
Edward Connole, LC, Edna Korman & Jean Orr – on Shakespeare
Michael McCarthy – Two Poems
Bernard Beatty – Talking about Byron
Alison Chisholm – Two Poems
Alison Platt & Sue O’Connor – on Far From the Madding Crowd
Mary Dagley – Poem
Selwyn Pritchard – Poem
Ron Travis – The National Year of Reading
Regulars
Editorial
Sian Davis – Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s Offer by Russell Hoban
Amanda Boston – Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
Steven Jones – The Continuing Education Experience
Literary Problems? – ask The Reader
The Reader Recommends – Under Western Eyes
Contributors
Buck’s Quiz