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About The Common Reader.
May 4, 2025
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Henry Oliver
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15
Doomed to choose...
Seamus Perry, pluralism, and poetry
5 hrs ago
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21
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Fierce, wild, intractability. Emily Brontë's untameable spirit
extracts from Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë
Feb 10
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42
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12
Twenty-one reactions to Wuthering Heights
from 1847 to 2007
Feb 9
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79
20
14
Confederate flags and Shenandoah's timelessness
A startling, splendid, shocking place
Feb 8
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112
27
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Most Popular
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How to have good taste
Jan 12, 2024
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2,788
135
662
How to get started reading English literature.
Mar 16, 2025
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1,011
88
139
No, Taylor Swift is not Mary Shelley
Jul 23, 2024
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758
105
119
Is Mary Oliver a good poet?
Apr 9, 2024
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662
87
106
How Naomi Kanakia read the Great Books
from her forthcoming book 'What's So Great About the Great Books?'
Feb 5
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59
2
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Hermione Lee: Tom Stoppard. “It’s Wanting to Know That Makes Us Matter”
Shaw, Turgenev, Eliot, Beckett, rehearsals, politics, rehearsals, Carey, Woolf, Brian Moore.
Feb 4
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Henry Oliver
44
14
6
56:57
Ice storm
The water all stopped and the rivers ran still, the icicles were long enough and sharp enough to kill
Feb 1
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Henry Oliver
139
19
13
HENRY JAMES. Plus: Small, Engines, Fairies, Wardrobe, Measure, Mirth, Life, Weird, Affinities
Recent reading
Jan 29
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33
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Come and be my intern (to talk about J.S. Mill)
The Mercatus summer internship is open for applications
Jan 27
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Recommendations
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The Ruffian
Ian Leslie
Sam Enright's Newsletter
Sam Enright
Cultural Capital
James Marriott
A.N. Wilson
A.N. Wilson
Woman of Letters
Naomi Kanakia
Late bloomers
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You make your own luck.
No, really. It's actually kind of true.
May 4, 2025
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Henry Oliver
148
20
31
Does the flame of genius burn past 30?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Jan 31, 2025
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123
20
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Launch day for Second Act!
What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life.
May 9, 2024
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37
20
6
Andrew Gelman reviews Erin Somers
I think Somers does a much better job than Updike in conveying what it feels like to be a parent.
Jan 26
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25
8
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Good letters made good men. Why should we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses?
some impassioned thoughts about (not) justifying the arts
Jan 22
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25
Democracy, by Henry Adams
Democracy by Henry Adams was the surprise, and anonymous, bestseller of 1880.
Jan 21
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52
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Bacon, Swift, Smith: Three anniversaries in 2026
A different sort of anniversary
Jan 14
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81
9
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See all
Shakespeare
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Cymbeline book club
SUNDAY 7 p.m. UK time, 2 p.m. Eastern
Dec 14, 2025
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13
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Coriolanus book club
SUNDAY 7 p.m. UK time, 2 p.m. Eastern
Nov 16, 2025
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11
7
Macbeth book club
SUNDAY 7 p.m. UK time, 2 p.m. Eastern
Oct 18, 2025
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27
3
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Macbeth's brief candle
A tragedy of time
Oct 9, 2025
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67
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Shakespeare’s mothers. The Countess in All's Well That Ends Well.
My piece in the new edition of Liberties
Oct 8, 2025
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