Author: professorwu

  • With news that a small group of fascists have attacked an independent bookstore in London, it is easy to feel this may be a case of history repeating itself. Bookmarks announced on 5 August that the store and its staff were attacked by “far right protestors wearing masks” the previous evening. The owners of the…

  • Will Eaves is a novelist, poet and teacher. He was Arts Editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1995 to 2011 before moving to the University of Warwick, where he is an Associate Professor in the Writing Programme. His novel-in-voices The Absent Therapist was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2014. The Inevitable Gift Shop, a collection of poetry…

  • As the unstable and chaotic conservative government of the UK stumbles ineptly toward a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, UK citizens have recently been given assurances that there will be “adequate food to eat” in the event that the UK leaves the European Union in the style of so many drunken British louts after a Thursday night at…

  • “Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence,” Audre Lourde famously opined in a stunning argument on the importance of poetry as a tool of protest and resistance. In these times of extreme global crises, it may be tempting to write off things like poetry as an unnecessary luxury –…

  • Sometimes, the only thing you can do is laugh. Around the world, brutes have risen – and continue to rise – to power. Far from challenging these despotic tyrants, our supposedly liberal western democracies have cow-towed to them, flattering them, and inflating their egos. In the UK, the weak and decrepit conservative party hangs on…

  • I think Britain is a very hot spot right now Of course, it is a hell hole With blood all over the floor It’s a war zone It’s going broke and not working   I just hope they get rid of the windfarms in Scotland They’re destroying the golf there   I think they like…

  • Do you like me? That’s an important question You should like me, You can make me look nice, handsome and thin, Like Lady Di, she had the whole thing, She had that skin…   What do I think of Kim? I think he liked me and I liked him, He’s a fat dotard, A crazy…

  • It is a remarkable feat to read a book that follows a day in the life of a would-be Zen Buddhist, in essentially real-time, and come away feeling refreshed, lighter, hopeful and – perhaps – more zen. Yet this is precisely what John Manderino’s latest book, Bopper’s Progess, does. Written in a fragmentary form, with…

  • Even the greatest writers need a little help and advice from time to time. In 1934, shortly before noting his famed list of books every aspiring writer should read, Ernest Hemingway received a request for feedback and writerly advice from his long-time friend and fellow literary great, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Following a nine-year period in…

  • For many litterateurs and book lovers, the prospect of running your own book store may sound a little bit like a far-fetched fantasy. Yet, thanks to the disruptive influence of AirBnB and a clever marketing gimmick, those who long to while away days amongst the bookshelves of a small independent book store can now do…