Dr Mariadele Boccardi

Read A.W. Wells' short story 'Chanson Triste.'

I would read that!

Ah, Byatt also wrote a rather catty opinion piece in the NYT which I think both over- and underestimates the HP novels.

Exactly was I was going to post! The whole point of sport (strictly speaking, games) in school fiction is that it is a vehicle to show the hero's character and alignment with the school ethos, which is in turn the supposed ethos of Empire.

Byatt?

True, because the rugby field or the cricket pitch are supposed to be the places where the school ethos (cough - future Empire officials, see the career of the older Weasley brothers) is realised. So, it is sport but it's meaning is meant to transcend the game/match itself.

the headmaster (for Thomas Arnold read Dumbledore), and so on.

The hero's home life before school, getting ready (Diagon Alley), making friends on the journey to school, explanation of the workings of the school, house rivalries on the sports field (for 🏉 read quidditch), protecting the vulnerable (Neville) from bullies, special relationship with

The books, especially the first 3, fit very neatly into the genre of the school story (Tom Brown's Schooldays etc) even more than actual boarding schools. Philosopher's Stone meets every convention.

Imagine how academics feel about it! (The last - or rather, only - good universities' minister was Chris Skidmore and that was 5 years ago.)

Yes! Politicians & commentators don't believe that middle-class social liberals have values that are just as strongly held as the (opposite) values attributed to the mythical hero voter. They equate the middle classes with transactional politics and the working classes with strongly held beliefs.

@verbivorial.bsky.social
It was nice to hear you on Shedunnit! (I'm still not sold on Sayers, mind you, but I enjoyed the episode.)

Skiing is overrated. The thick hot chocolate afterwards is the only redeeming feature. I'm from the North of Italy, not far from proper mountains, but even when I was younger I'm just too much into self- and bodyheat-preservation to get into it.

Yes (it was in an episode of The Rest is History, with Kaiser Wiilam's yachting shoes).

I would have put Arthur and George top, then History, then Parrot.

Agree! I'm planning to have it in a module called Literature and Global Futures.

It's semi-autobiographic, based on the author's (Giorgio Bassani) experiences as part the Jewish community in Ferrara.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is so good. Have you read The Garden of the Finzi-Contini? It's another fantastic book (a novel, but in the form of a memoir) set in Italy during Fascism.

But the wasp (should be a bee per Death in the Clouds, but never mind) at least makes sense because it refers to something in the plot. The fly here is just bizarre: there is no fly in Mrs McGinty's Dead.

I'm not even sure what it is about the Quartet that means I can't get into it. I *like* long, plotted books; I read Neo-Victorian fiction (never knowingly undercut in length) for pleasure as well as for a job. And yet...

Caroline Nokes? Jesse Norman?

I have a copy too, on my shelves rather than my "want to read" pile. Being stranded on a desert island is my best chance of ever reading it.

Indeed. Fewer than 47 needed if some of those defections are *to* the Lib Dems, no?

Fewer than 47 needed if some of those defections are *to* the Lib Dems, no?

Also the argument of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in The Epistemology of the Closet, only she applies it to the 19th century European novel. It's a great book.

In Shakespeare it means for the time being (more or less).

Yes but who guards you?

Five daughters, no?

Robert has been fishing quite a bit but has yet to catch a fish.

Yes, Russian. The title page also has "translation from English" and "poems in translation" with names.