Letters: Norwich accolade
On Thursday last week, Norwich was made a Unesco City of Literature, the only English city with this accolade and only the second city in the UK after Edinburgh. The award recognises both the historic depth of writing in Norwich and the city's contempo...
Underground Overground by Andrew Martin – review
The London underground is uncovered in Andrew Martin's amusing social historyIf you've ever wondered who is responsible for the announcements on the Northern line, or why Bakerloo line trains don't have armrests, then this engaging and witty social his...
What is left unsaid is often more powerful and poetic | Biljana Scott
Implicit communication is vital to diplomacy – as we can keep our options open while not causing offenceWhy use implicit communication? Wouldn't life be so much simpler if people just said what they meant? Perhaps, but it would also be much poorer, f...
Jeanette Winterson to take up writing professorship at Manchester University
Novelist best known for Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit will teach undergraduates and MA students in city of her birthJeanette Winterson has been appointed professor of creative writing at Manchester University, a post held in recent years by Martin Ami...
Letters: Browning’s bicentenary is worth celebrating
John Dugdale is quite right to point out that Browning has been overshadowed by Dickens in their bicentenary year (Review: The week in books, 5 May), but this is not for lack of attempts on the part of the Browning Society and others to mark the occasi...
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee sees the UK’s longest public record unrolled
There weren't that many names on Workington's petition for Queen Victoria's great bash. But organisers glued together enough sheets of paper to find a place in historyThe recent system of e-petitions to Parliament has led to some mighty long lists of n...
Woody Guthrie comes to Salford
The Working Class Movement Library draws on the American folk legend to help bridge a gap in its budgetFolk legend Woody Guthrie, an American academic working in Preston, an avant garde art centre, the Working Class Movement Library in Salford… ...a...
Student publishes a new Shakespeare text
We're not talking First Folio, mind. This is the world of 2b r nt 2b - but with the highest of motivesWilliam Shakespeare's reputation has little to fear from history, but even so it's nice to know that he has got a Yorkshire student at Northumbria uni...
The beguiling power of mystery that can make us forget a family’s pain | Henry Porter
Our desire for life to be dramatic can lead us to merge real-life stories such as the death of Gareth Williams into fictionThe obvious, though almost entirely forgotten, truth about the deaths of the SIS cryptanalyst Gareth Williams and the British bus...
Saltaire Arts Trail welcomes the world
One of the north's best examples of a revived and flourishing industrial community is going artistically wild for the Bank Holiday weekendIn this cold and uninviting weather, the place to be is Saltaire near Bradford, which is holding its annual Arts T...
Taliban poetry book denounced by former British commander
Anthology of war, love and nature poetry called 'self-justifying propaganda' but publishers say it reveals universal experiencesThe UK publication this month of a book of translated Taliban poetry has been denounced as enemy propaganda by a former comm...
Michael Gove’s Bibles: good for schools? | Poll