Carol Rumens's poem of the weekPoetryPoem of the weekNonsense, or anti-capitalist allegory? Decide for yourself as Lewis Carroll leads us through the looking-glass.Lines from The Walrus and the Carpenter have been inexplicably running through my head all week, and eventually I had to leave my oyster-bed, go Through the Looking-Glass and find the whole poem. Whereupon, dear readers, as Alice might have said, I decided that it was so beautifully versified, so funny, so horrible and, in the year 2007, so politically resonant, that it deserves to be our Poem of the Week. Read More...
The ObserverCareers This article is more than 3 months oldRevenge of the nerds is a fantasy, it’s the jocks who have more successful careersThis article is more than 3 months oldTorsten BellAthletes have social skills that take them far in the world of business and finance, a study of US Ivy League alumni findsWe tell the kids not to worry if they’re not “cool” at school. A common reassurance is that the nerds shall inherit, if not the Earth, then at least the good jobs. Read More...
The ObserverFictionReviewTwo boys and a girl are caught up in a tender love triangle in the third novel from the author of When God Was a RabbitIn the prologue to Sarah Winman’s third novel, a woman defies her husband at the local community centre when, upon winning a raffle, she chooses as her prize not the whisky her husband desires but a reproduction of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: “It was her first ever act of defiance. Read More...