What makes the classics so ‘classic,’ and why should modern readers still seek to experience them? Nothing to be frightened of As Arnold Bennett reflected, it is easy to feel daunted when approaching the literary canon – “The a...

What is literary taste, and how does one develop it? If the question of like / don’t like is insufficient, what other considerations come into play? My guru in this matter is little-read English novelist Arnold Bennett, whose L...

For those of us whose university days are in the past, for whom books are now non-obligatory, what is the point of reading? Is it now just an escapist leisure activity, or should it be a tool for continuing one’s learning? So: ...