The Latest Breaking News from Bookshoporg

When the Zionist movement began to gather pace a century ago, many Jewish supporters wanted not just to create a political state for themselves, but to initiate a cultural revolution that would forge a new kind of Jewishness. Proud, self-reliant and resilient, the “new Jew” was a reaction to centuries…

During the early years of the second world war, George Orwell believed that England’s revolutionary moment had arrived. The defeat at Dunkirk had discredited the country’s ruling elite. Their bungling had left England on the verge of invasion and defeat.

Our hero is on his way to confront danger, feign love and give away a little of his soul. As he takes a long plane journey over Europe into enemy territory, he reflects on what his younger self would make of him now: “Would he recognise himself beneath the surface…

From the pompous vanity of Sir Walter Elliot in Persuasion (1817), to the shallow reading habits of Isabella in Northanger Abbey (1817), few characters in the works of Jane Austen are spared the gentle satire of her famously ironic narrative voice. Similarly, some of her best remembered characters, like Elizabeth…

A sense of distance has always been part of romantic love. The experience of wanting to be with another person often requires separation, if only in the form of days apart for work and travel. Matters become more complicated, however, when that distance is mediated by technology – by dating…

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. An Austen enthusiast might attend the birthday ball at the Alton Assembly Rooms in Hampshire or take an Austen-themed walking tour. They might dance at the Pump Rooms in Bath, a city with strong Austen connections, or in Utah, which…

Somewhere between hero and hustler, family man and philanderer, king and con artist, Odysseus is one of ancient literature’s most complex figures. In the Iliad, he is the mastermind behind the Trojan horse.

Have you ever wondered why people who nearly die often describe speeding toward supernatural light, or seeing their life flash before their eyes? You may have also heard about the powerful psychedelic dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a class A illegal drug in the UK, and how it might generate the so-called near-death…

According to one strand of history, slavery was abolished when Europeans found their conscience. According to another, it was abolished when it stopped being profitable. Both approaches tend to underplay the significance of Black resistance.

The feelings that surged through the pub that I watched the women’s Euro 2022 cup final in were electric. England had won. My friends were in tears. Strangers were shaking hands, patting each other on the back, smiling goofily at anyone who would catch their eye. It was wonderful. I’m…

Maritime folklore has long been shuffled to the margins of nautical history, presented as the quaint, colourful oddities of a former age. Yet this body of beliefs, practices and stories can offer important insights into how seafarers of the 19th century viewed and understood their working environment.