For the past two months, I’ve been engrossed in the thrilling reality of the Red Rising book series. I initially picked it up because it was recommended as a novel transporting the…

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” – this catch phrase from Hamlet means that something is wrong in the situation. I say something was wrong with me if I didn’t…

I fell in love with ballet this February. I had seen ballet performances live and on screen before. Classical ballet, I mean. Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Don Quixote. Gorgeous, exquisite dancing. I liked…

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” – Lucille Ball “To see what is right and…

There are stories that look forward, and there are stories that look backward. The older I get, the more often the latter type seems to find me. Last year I…

The publishers of the first complete works of Shakespeare claimed that theirs was the definite and final edition, absolutely true to the original, in contrast to the previous books that…

A glass-walled room is on the stage, with a small desk and some cardboard boxes around it. The background is a huge screen showing a harbour and the Statue of…

Can you imagine Hamlet being a woman? Or a female James Bond for that matter? It may not come to that, but the current trend of swapping originally male characters…

For the past couple of months, my daughters and I have been living in the fantasy world created by Philip Pullman. Every evening we make ourselves comfortable on our cosy…

The choice of book was pure chance. I’ve never read any novels by Stephen King and I’ve never taken any interest in the horror genre. What I was looking for,…