Bookwise 2025/4

‘Decadent Youth’ (1899) by Ramon Casas. This month my post ‘Why do I read?’ stimulated some fascinating discussion, though luckily nobody saw it indulgent or even, as in the…

Pain comes again:  #ReadingTheTheatre

© C A Lovegrove. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany and J K Rowling. Sphere / Little, Brown, 2017 (2016). “Harry, there is never a perfect answe…

The stage is set: #ReadingTheTheatre

© C A Lovegrove. Every April – the month in which Shakespeare was both born and died – I try to read at least one book which involves theatrical matters before reviewing it. It might for example be…

A Soviet era fairytale

© C A Lovegrove The Dragon: A Satiric Fable in Three Acts by Eugene Schwarz [1944]. Дракон. Пьеса в трех действиях translated from the Russian by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood (1961), introductio…

Mischiefs feed like beasts

Doorknocker © C A Lovegrove Volpone, [or The Foxe: A Comedie] by Ben Jonson (1606-7). Edited by Philip Brockbank. New Mermaids: A & C Black / W W Norton & Company, 1989 (1969). ‘Riche…

A fearful thing: #ReadingTheTheatre

© C A Lovegrove. Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson. Also issued as The Reluctant Heiress (2009).Young Picador, 2008 (1982). ‘I believed it. I believed it all,’ said Tessa. ‘That you se…

Winding Up the Week #372

In this fourth and final week of Dewithon, we look at books read and reviewed, discover some of the best writing about literature on the blogosphere, look forward to the 1937 Club, announce Reading…

Most excellent: #ReadingTheTheatre

A tragical history