'The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature' by C.S. Lewis
On a clear, starlit night, go outside and look at the stars. Try to imagine what it was like looking up at the night sky in Mediaeval...
The Doctor as Rebel
Back in 2009, David Tennant was chosen as a 'dream headteacher’ in a survey of primary school children commissioned by the National...
The Story of a Sword
Most Tolkien fanatics know about Glamdring, the ancient sword wielded by Gandalf during the War of the Ring and seen by most of us in...
Agatha Christie's Secret
Agatha Christie has sold more books than any other author on the planet, with estimations ranging from a hundred million to two billion...
Five Very Practical Tips for Unleashing the Writer Within You
For anyone who has always wanted to be a writer, the obstacles can sometimes seem impossible to overcome. It’s not a question of ‘How...
Teaching 'Macbeth'
In the early 2000s, while teaching English Literature to a group of 14 year olds, I performed an experiment in two parts. Firstly, using...
A Yorkshire Adventure
Netherne to Saint Pancras It was Christmas in the latter part of the twentieth century. Snow lay across most of England. Having packed a...
How Narnia Became a Fully-Fledged World
In class at school, in 1971, I sat next to a girl I’d never spoken to and had no real intention of getting to know. During a reading...