Like his poems, Smith’s novels are mostly short, spare in their use of words, poetic in their choice of the few telling details that reveal far more than many writers working on much larger canvases. An Honourable Death is a superb example. It...
No, I don’t meanconstructors hiding quotations, poems, or word seeks in their crosswords, though those are impressive feats of cruciverbalism. I’m talking about stories about actual secret messages concealed in crossword grids, meant to be hidden from even the most diligent solvers, only a...
I can’t fall asleep without reading first. But as we enter (hopefully) the last stage of the pandemic, which has also been a tough year for me personally, I’ve found my focus is often scattershot. Short stories or poems are a good solution. This Zadie Smith collection is — not sur...
He was wondering all the time over the extraordinary clairvoyance of the publisher, who had looked through so many thick folds, broadcloth, lining, brown paper, and seen his poems lying hidden in his breast-pocket. The idea that a young person coming on such an errand should have to ...
When she retired to her room, it was with the intention of reading a new volume of poems she had just purchased, but the lines seemed to her lacking in inspiration. There are certain moods in which even the loftiest verse seems poor to us compared with the odes and poems which nature ...