So, The Day of Reckoning has finally arrived. As Scots - or rather, current residents of Scotland - head to the polling booth with the fate of the Union on a knife-edge, our own Daniel Kalder explains, particularly for the benefit of non-Britons, what the hell is going on with the ... Read More...
Month: September 2014
In which the determinedly lapsed Rita fails to shake off her Catholic roots... When we crossed the Mason-Dixon line and I saw the Maryland countryside for the first time, I was reminded of England. After five years in California the green, gently rolling Maryland hills dotted with sheep and cattle were ... Read More...
September sees us feature an apocalyptic new work of fiction as our bookclub choice for the month - and you can get your hands on a free copy by signing up to the Dabbler Book club newsletter. DAY ONE The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron ... Read More...
Last month's Dabbler Book Club choice has reached the shortlist for the 2014 Man Booker prize - but does it live up to the hype? Burma, 1942. In disease-ridden jungle 240,000 prisoners of war labour night and day for their Japanese captors, destroying bodies and minds to finish a rail line linking ... Read More...
Bookseller Steerforth handles a great many old books in his line of work. Often he'll find old photos amongst the piles of mildewed tomes, snapshots of lost worlds and forgotten lives. In this new series he shares some of the more interesting, surprising and moving discoveries, beginning with an album ... Read More...
This week Mahlerman selects works by four composers who were direcly influenced by the greatest of them all, J S Bach... Without the famous horsehair wig, and looking more like a Soho bouncer than perhaps the greatest composer who ever lived, we can better appreciate the personality of J S Bach, ... Read More...
An apartment block that only the most well connected are invited to live in? Another mysterious case for the Wikiworm, taken from the weirder side of Wikipedia The Albany, or simply Albany —(since the mid-20th century some have claimed that the definite article is not in use among the fashionable)— is an exclusive apartment complex ... Read More...
This week, Frank takes up an exciting new hobby... Bored by stamps, coins, and foopball paraphernalia, I decided to collect flies in mud. I began my collection last Saturday, and what with one thing and another have not been able to devote as much time to it as I would have ... Read More...
It's the trendy white wine of the moment - but how good is Picpoul de Pinet, asks Henry... If you’re anything like me, you'll be desperate to know what the big names of the British wine world, yer McQuittys, yer Becketts, yer Moores, have been drinking this summer. To a woman this year, they have ... Read More...
Ever tried to write a novel that wasn't worthless? Douglas considers talent, mediocrity, the limits of creativity and the art of appreciation... In A Mathematician’s Apology G.H. Hardy estimates that only five or ten people in a hundred can do something “rather well.” Considerably fewer are truly gifted. We do not each have ... Read More...
