Phantom Libraries – Part 6: Babel

In the concluding episode of his series about Phantom Libraries and unwritten books, Jonathan Law comes at last to Borges, monkeys and Babel... In all this talk of lost and phantom libraries there is one giant figure we have yet to consider, although his presence may have been felt hovering in the wings: the great ... Read More...

Phantom Libraries – Part 5: The Dreaming

Continuing his series about Phantom Libraries and unwritten books, Jonathan Law explores the books that only exist in dreams, and wonders why he once encountered one called Manly Ways to Eat Fruit... There is something peculiarly painful about the idea of the lost or unwritten masterpiece – the great book that no one will read, ever, except ... Read More...

Phantom Libraries – Part 3: The Sealed Museum of Sir Thomas Browne

Having reviewed comical imaginary libraries from Swift to The Sims, Jonathan Law turns to stranger, more dreamlike worlds, for 'large are the treasures of oblivion'... So far, this has been mostly for laughs. The libraries invented by Rabelais, Donne, Joyce, and Swift were all uproarious things, even where the humour seemed to be laced with something ... Read More...

Tarka the Rotter

He wrote animal stories of exquisite prose, yet Henry Williamson ended up as an overt, unapologetic Nazi. In this Dabbler classic, Jonathan Law looks at the good and the (alarmingly) bad sides of the author of Tarka the Otter... If we’re honest, most of us have at least one friend that we ... Read More...