“This book tells the truth about my life”. Issue 10 explores the different reasons why people read. Is it for education, pleasure or escapism? Or do people read in search of recognition, or truth, or in search of a better understanding of their own lives. And inside the universities, what are ‘literary studies’ nowadays? What do students of English learn from their courses?
Anne Michaels in conversation about her own writing and its themes of memory, time and language:
All writing is about time that is lost, a desire to retrieve experience, whether biographical or fictional.Terry Hands discusses his own career in the theatre, and how Shakespeare is performed today:
There’s no such thing as a character in Shakespeare, there’s only the actor playing it.Philip Davis reveals what is uniquely on offer in the study of literature:
Reaching areas of the brain inaccessible by other means, literary study consists of experiments and experiences in mental chemistry…
ALSO: Poetry by David Constantine and Tom Paulin, Alan Davis on Ruskin and the permanency of writing, Brian Nellist on Othello, and recommendations for W.G Sebald, the Psalms, and Joseph Heller.
Features
Anne Michaels – Interview
Tom Nesbit – Poem
Alan Gould – Consolation and the Novel
David Constantine – Three poems
Alan Davis – ‘This is the best of me’
Neil Curry – Two poems
Terry Hands – Interview
Tom Paulin – Poem
Leigh Kennedy – Jack in English
Gill Gregory – Poem
Vincent Parker – Poem
Helen Kitson – Poem
Juned Subhan – Two poems
Philip Davis – The Place of the Implicit
N S Thompson – Poem
Adam Piette – The Practice of Poetry
B F Nellist – The Function of Conversation in Othello
Gloria Moreno-Castillo – Reading R S Thomas
Helen Clare – Two poems
Liz Hubbard – Reading at work
Regular
Editorial
Reviews
Secondhand
The Reader Recommends
Meet the Reader – Carol Van Houten
Literary Problems? – Ask The Reader
Contributors
Crossword
Buck’s Quiz
The Spotter’s Guide to Readers