Publishers in Oxford
It is easy to see why Oxford is the second largest hotspot for publishers after London: only an hour away from the capital, with a literary and academic background that is hard to rival, the city has countless publishers of all kinds, perhaps the most renowned being that of its famous university ‘Oxford University Press’ … Read more
Blackwell’s
One of Oxford’s greatest bookstores is undoubtedly Blackwell’s, whose name has long been synonymous with the city and its unrivalled academia. Whilst the chain now owns flagship shops in Cambridge, London Charing Cross Road and Edinburgh South Bridge, it was Oxford’s Broad Street in which Benjamin Henry Blackwell opened his first ever store in January 1879. In those … Read more
Oxford World Book Capital 2014
Hello again Oxford World Bookers, sorry for such a long absence – holidays and work experience following that have meant no time whatsoever to devote to the blog – but I’m pleased to say I’m back again and ready to do some last-minute posts on why Oxford deserves to win before UNESCO’s decision in early … Read more
The Hedgehog and the Fox
Over six hundred years ago Oxford University had its first library – in an upper room in the University church of St Mary the Virgin (now, less grandiosely, above the café in the church). Just over sixty years ago a group of people met together in the same room to form the Oxford Committee for … Read more
Oxford Fiction – A Round Up!
With the bid decision drawing close, I thought a last post to round up some great Oxford fiction would be in order as I go on holiday tomorrow for a fortnight: when I return, there won’t be long left until the verdict so some supporting information about the city in general and why we deserve … Read more
Eagle and Child and The Inklings
As a city with such a rich literary history, it is inevitable that there are countless places dotted around Oxford which boast a bookish background, some of which may not be so obvious. One of the best examples of this is the Eagle and Child pub on St Giles, meeting place for the infamous Inklings … Read more
Brideshead Revisited
Another Oxfordian classic which deals with class from a completely different perspective to Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’ is Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Brideshead Revisited,’ whose upper-class protagonist, unlike Jude, did indeed have the opportunity to study at Oxford. Again weaving issues of class, marriage and religion, ‘Brideshead Revisited’ shares a further similarity with ‘Jude’ in its somewhat … Read more
Jude the Obscure
Set in Christminster, a fictional town modelled on Oxford, Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’ is yet another classic that takes the city of dreaming spires as its inspiration. Widely considered one of the most depressing, the novel intertwines suicide, murder and the severe consequences of religious constrictions and was publicly burned in its time for … Read more
Writer’s block
Can you summarize War and Peace in a tweet? If you can, does that mean that Tolstoy wrote far too many words? Now that we can all tweet and blog, does that make everyone a writer? They say that everyone has one novel inside them, and one wit added that in most cases that’s where … Read more
