The Common Reader

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How to be a late bloomer in 2024
What did you do today to make that tomorrow possible?
 • 
Henry Oliver
23
The soul moved the pen, and broke it.
Flaubert's emotional style.
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Henry Oliver
31
I quit my job to write a book about late bloomers
Not before time...
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Henry Oliver
111
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The case for opsimaths. Maybe late bloomers aren't so late
 • Henry Oliver
14
I quit my job to write a book about late bloomers
 • Henry Oliver
111
Aiming at something noble. Resolutions for human flourishing.
 • Henry Oliver
24
How to have good taste
 • Henry Oliver
21
Let there be more biographies of failures
 • Henry Oliver
22
Patricia Highsmith's womb of her own
If you aren’t a great artist, you’ll find out.
 • 
Henry Oliver
Paul Graham's plain rhetoric
Deceptively simple writing
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Henry Oliver
16
Shakespeare's breakthrough in Henry IV
The control of lyricism, the mixture of light and dark, and the realism of lowly characters.
 • 
Henry Oliver
3
Is Mary Oliver a good poet?
Uh, yeah she is. “The world offers itself to your imagination.”
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Henry Oliver
34
Sex, madness, and death. Elizabeth Jenkins' overlooked masterpiece.
Obscurity in the age of Martin Amis's leather jacket.
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Henry Oliver
6
Henry IV book club
SUNDAY 7 p.m. UK time
 • 
Henry Oliver
What about the people who never found their calling?
Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard.
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Henry Oliver
14
Who is Falstaff?
Talking like common people
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Henry Oliver
10
How Penelope Fitzgerald became a late blooming novelist.
“It is a peculiar thing to take a step forward in middle age, but having done it I don’t intend to retreat.”
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Henry Oliver
11
The Common Reader
The Common Reader
Essays for interesting people about talent, literature, and biography. "One of my favourite Substacks." Helen Lewis
Recommendations
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The Ruffian
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How We Homeschool
How We Homeschool
Catherine Oliver
Strange Loop Canon
Strange Loop Canon
Rohit Krishnan
Mostly Aesthetics
Mostly Aesthetics
Brad Skow
The Bluestocking
The Bluestocking
Helen Lewis

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