The Common Reader
A blog for what Samuel Johnson and Virginia Woolf called the common reader. Make the most of your reading time. "One of my favourite Substacks." Helen Lewis
“Books you didn’t know you wanted to read. ”
Helen Lewis, The Bluestocking
“literature and biography (and opsimaths too!) - great stuff”
Shane O'Mara, Brain Pizza by Shane O'Mara
“As someone who hasn't yet attained the status they seek, this publication's focus on late bloomers and their paths in life is inspiring and diverting”
James Harris, Stiff Upper Quip
The Pachinko Parlour, by Elisa Shua DusapinThis week I wrote a defence of the new Persuasion adaptation for The Critic in which I defend the millennial American version of Austen against the stuffy English Janeite version. It took me a few days to work out what I think of this novel. Like the modern Japanese fiction I…
Philip Larkin. Poet of the almost.I haven’t read any of the articles for Larkin’s centenary. They all looked boring. But I find him un-ignorable, so I have written a close reading of The Whitsun Weddings as a bonus essay this week. This is longer and more detailed than usual. Normal weekly service will resume on…
